xPrae: How I defeated you so soundly (part 1: introduction and atheism)

Introduction

I have recently been locked into a debate with a rather strange interlocutor, who I shall call xPrae (this is short for xPraetori, which in turn has a slightly different meaning on the blog in question). The strangeness comes from a number of elements, like encouraging the discussion to not cite or even use sources, and to try to avoid labels. The accusation of ‘label use’ was used to great effect: xPrae could, obviously, accuse any word of being a label and, when the conversation got difficult for him, he would. The conversation was also strange in its repetitiveness, as xPrae seemed to want to use his labels in a very specifically wrong way, especially regarding atheism; that’s sort of how the conversation started.

I started writing a post that I considered guest-posting at xPrae’s blog, but I decided against it after reading the divisive, condescending and smug way in which they refer to ‘leftists’ in one of the pages of their blog. There’s no point posting where you’re not welcome and the environment is intentionally hostile. xPrae did have a very hostile approach: commenters were chastised for making any level of assumptions, even if they seemed well founded, yet xPrae would take his own really-quite-wild assumptions about his commenters and put them in quotation marks and present them as the exact wording of the commenter. So, I soon realised conversation there was going to be without merit, as xPrae was actually mining for little nuggets to support his own view, instead of engaging in honest discussion.

So, instead, I decided to alter my post and turn it into mini-series. The mini-series will include a short discussion of this video, where a film crew try to pass off passages of the Bible as passages from the Koran. It highlights an important problem with how we engage religious discussions. I also use it to highlight how xPrae is an inconsistent interlocutor, but how that inconsistency is actually a useful tool implemented by many people in religious discussions to avoid having a rational or even a useful conversation. Another post in the series will talk about atheism in respect to its role in tyranny. But first, a quick look at atheism as a label.

What is Atheism?

I engaged in a lengthy but unstructured debate here, and to an extent it is still ongoing; or, at least, it is still open-ended. The issue I managed to engage an interlocutor on was a question pertaining to atheism and its role relating to “socialism” (but not actual socialism) and ethics. “Atheism” is a label I am loathe to use because it doesn’t denote anything, and others use it as a hook to append any baggage they see fit or convenient. I’ve tried to define ‘atheism’ and ‘New Atheism’ before, but my position has evolved, so I want to look at it again.

Religion―all religions―are at a massive advantage and disadvantage over atheism in all discussions where the issue is framed in reference to religion and atheism. Religions have answers to questions: there is at least one book; the book or collection of writings is large and very comprehensive; the content of those writings, at the very least, entertains the idea of answering big questions, like those of ethics. I’d argue that is simultaneously the weakness of religion: absolute (and often contradictory) answers. Not just absolute answers, but old ones at that. By contrast, atheism does not: atheism does not purport to even entertain the idea of answering any questions at all. That’s not its strength, but it’s also not its weakness; atheism is not a player in a debate, it has no horse in the race.

The sentence “I am an atheist, therefore…” can only end with words to the effect of “… I am unconvinced of the existence of a God”; it cannot meaningfully end with “… I believe this is morally acceptable” or anything else. Atheists have other mechanisms by which they explain the world in terms of ethics and existence and material etc. It is common for religious people to append nihilism to atheism, as well as anti-theism. This is ridiculous: nihilism answers questions of ethics and meaning and purpose, and it’s not a monolith. There is a complex of answers and different schools of thought in nihilism. Yet, nihilism gets its own baggage and suddenly ‘atheism’ is bogged down in the existential despair interpretation of nihilism that some religious people assume. Some religious people even like to append their own ethical prescription from biological evolution to some imagined ‘Book of Atheism’.

Atheists are free to pick a number of God-free philosophies to answer questions of ethics and meaning and politics: secularism, humanism, Deep Ecology, positive nihilism. Atheists could even adopt God-based philosophies as ‘useful’ (but not ‘true’) philosophies, if they wished. But none of these are defining of atheism; they can’t be. Some of the philosophies an atheist would use are incompatible with other, so they cannot form the definition of atheism. Trying to fit doctrines into atheism is linguistic trickery and sophistry.

I asked xPrae to offer a list of High Priests, core books, dogmas or tenets of atheism, to demonstrate that atheism is not actually content free. He ignored that request. I open it to the floor.

Well, these come 1 a week for a bit. We’ll see if it coaxes him or his commenters (who are possibly him) out of their echo chamber.
We was interesting, in a I-think-I-know-someone-who-could-diagnose-him kind of way.

Indeed! He won’t come out of the den, though. You know that. I know that. Praetorius even knows that. It’s why he has only three readers of his blog, and as we suspect is the case, they’re probably all him logging in as a different “user” to say “You’re the BEST slayer of evil atheists ever, Praetorius!”… but oddly always with the same IP address.

I’ll check over at his blog every now and then to see if the pingback has been allowed through moderation. But I doubt he’ll even allow that much.
He never did link me to the place he apparently so soundly beat you. He just paraded like a peacock.

Unless one is simply after a bit of fun, it is better to write one’s own post in answer, and link to the original.
The last time I popped over he was getting his usual number of comments – namely (pretty much) none.
Ginormous arse-hat.

I actually attempted to engage with him, on ark’s encouragement no less, but lost interest after awhile. Doesn’t seem willing to have open ended, honest conversations. Kind of like a lot of bloggers of my now former faith. I could name them off, but you all seem to know them and many more. If people won’t be open and honest there really is no point.
-KIA

I’m not retracting my comment. I admit, quite readily, you did allow the pingback through. However, at the time I had written that comment, you had posted on your blog and not let the pingback through, so I honestly doubted you would. Why would I retract something I was wrong about? Hiding my mistakes doesn’t seem at all intellectually honest.

As for discussing like a mature adult: how do they interact, Prae? Do they accuse arguments they don’t want to engage with of being “contortions” and not elaborating, making discussion impossible? Do they censor “bad” words and focus on the form, not the content, of their interlocutor? Do they disregard nuance in favour of their false-narratives? Do they claim they are being “trashed” in a post that is balanced and fair? Certainly seems so.

You, for example, can’t seem to tell the difference between me claiming someone is not an atheist and me claiming atheism is not a motivator for someone. Why would I continue to engage with someone who can’t tell the difference between such clearly different claims.

Did you know all artists, when given power, are genocidal maniacs? It’s true, because Hitler was an artist…

Lastly, I do hope Connecticut isn’t the third world hell hole you were talking about.

I’m not retracting my comment. I admit, quite readily, you did allow the pingback through. However, at the time I had written that comment, you had posted on your blog and not let the pingback through, so I honestly doubted you would. Why would I retract something I was wrong about? Hiding my mistakes doesn’t seem at all intellectually honest.

As for discussing like a mature adult: how do they interact, Prae? Do they accuse arguments they don’t want to engage with of being “contortions” and not elaborating, making discussion impossible? Do they censor “bad” words and focus on the form, not the content, of their interlocutor? Do they disregard nuance in favour of their false-narratives? Do they claim they are being “trashed” in a post that is balanced and fair? Certainly seems so.

You, for example, can’t seem to tell the difference between me claiming someone is not an atheist and me claiming atheism is not a motivator for someone. Why would I continue to engage with someone who can’t tell the difference between such clearly different claims.

Did you know all artists, when given power, are genocidal maniacs? It’s true, because Hitler was an artist…

Lastly, I do hope Connecticut isn’t the third world hell hole you were talking about.

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Well, this is awkward. I give you a transparent opprotunity to separate yourself from the usual, uneducated ruck, and you flub it completely. Oh, well… I guess you’re just not serious about your viewpoints.You said:

I’m not retracting my comment. I admit, quite readily, you did allow the pingback through. However, at the time I had written that comment, you had posted on your blog and not let the pingback through, so I honestly doubted you would. Why would I retract something I was wrong about? Hiding my mistakes doesn’t seem at all intellectually honest.

Response:

Hogwash! Worse: dishonest hogwash. The plain and simple truth: I’d never once given you any indication whatsoever that I’d censor amything you wrote. You know it, and you’re apparently not man enough to admit it. More to the point, you had an opportunity, without any impact to your core arguments, to provide a hint that you are able to be — to quote you: “open to the idea you might be wrong.” Well, I guess you just can’t reason with your kind of thinking.

You didn’t “hide your mistakes,” you’re attempting to re-label as “a mistake” what was really an immature cheap shot, and that’s what you ought to be man enough to admit.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

As for discussing like a mature adult: how do they interact, Prae? Do they accuse arguments they don’t want to engage with of being “contortions” and not elaborating, making discussion impossible? Do they censor “bad” words and focus on the form, not the content, of their interlocutor? Do they disregard nuance in favour of their false-narratives? Do they claim they are being “trashed” in a post that is balanced and fair? Certainly seems so.

Response:

Well, the previous exchange sure suggests that you aren’t ready, willing or able to discuss things like an adult.

As for: “Do they accuse arguments they don’t want to engage with of being “contortions” and not elaborating, making discussion impossible?” … That’s just more dishonest hogwash. I engaged all your arguments. At great length, and provided great detail.

And: “Do they censor “bad” words and focus on the form, not the content, of their interlocutor?” Yes, they establish appropriate ground rules for their blogs and, as I did, give way more than adequate notice that they had established such ground rules. Then, more hogwash from you. After editing out juvenile, inappropriate language, and none of the meaning, I, indeed, focused on the content, such as it was.

And: “Do they disregard nuance in favour of their false-narratives? (sic)” A silly throwaway from you. It’s your narrative that’s false. 🙂 Condemning nuance is, of course, the correct thing to do, when the nuance is just silly, sophistic evasion of the fact that atheism does, as you and I have agreed, represent an open door to atrocities.

Your “nuance” is nothing more than a self-interested evasion, stemming from an understandable desire to absolve your particular thought tendency of its guilt for having been a necessary ingredient in the ideology that perpetrated those atrocities.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

You, for example, can’t seem to tell the difference between me claiming someone is not an atheist and me claiming atheism is not a motivator for someone. Why would I continue to engage with someone who can’t tell the difference between such clearly different claims.

Response:

First of all this is semi-literate and incoherent. You and I both agreed that atheism is not a “motivator,” but rather represents “permission” for, or at least a lack of prohibition against, mayhem and atrocity.

When you and I agreed on that, you needed desperately to re-define obvious atheists — Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Castro, Ho, the Kims, etc. — as not atheists. That’s the contortion of which I accused you, and it’s the contortion of which you were guilty. 🙂 I don’t blame you. Such contortion would be, of course, necessary when one understands the role that atheism has played in hundreds of millions of atrocities.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

Did you know all artists, when given power, are genocidal maniacs? It’s true, because Hitler was an artist…

Response:

Another silly throwaway. Might as well say that “breathing” causes genocidal maniacs. An interest in the arts is not related to the impulses to perpetrate mayhem and atrocities. Permission — permission that one grants to oneself — is. You already admitted that atheism is that permission. Or, as you yourself said: it certainly represents a lack of prohibition.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

Lastly, I do hope Connecticut isn’t the third world hell hole you were talking about.

Response:

Ooooooo… so clever! Surely you’re not that ignorant of how the internet works? I hope you understand that anyone can make any blog post appear to come from any country in the world. Quite easily. All our blog posts originate from Connecticut. None of our writers, except one, submit them from Connecticut. Because I have a nearly foolproof means of assuring my own anonymity, and that of my colleagues, I allow some friends and colleagues to avail themselves of the same facility.

More to the point, though, this is the trap that everyone who runs out of arguments falls into: Let’s try to trap the other guy some other way. Any way possible. Anything to deflect from the conversation, because it’s not going the way you want it to. They looked for everything possible … and they always looked at my IP address to try to find some little irrelevancy. Any little irrelevancy. You know, I never looked at your IP address, Allallt. I speculated on Ark’s country of origin, because he mentioned that he never consumes American media, but I don’t care where he’s from. I engage ideas, and that’s what you should try to do. You might experience some growth. And you might be able to diminish both your provincial tunnel vision and your desperate-seeming desire to deflect from, coat over, and hide the truth of atheism’s dirty reality.

However, on a lighter note, your question did tickle my funny bone. I like the image of Connecticut as “third-world hellhole.” Now that you mention it, there are certain parallels, right down to the would-be tin-pot dictator!

You dedicate a lot of time to the issue of where you are, but I put one sentence in about it. The one focussing on the irrelevancy is you. I also didn’t mention an IP address. All your posts come through Connecticut? Because another one came through Virginia. You’re right, it’s entirely irrelevant, and I thought I was making light of it. If an ironic or comical undertone didn’t come through, I apologise. But I’m glad it tickled your funny bone on some level.

But you didn’t have to take it that seriously. If you’re really trying to hide your location, you should have let me believe you were in Connecticut. And, if it’s that secret, you shouldn’t divulge you’re on a secret mission in some third world hell-hole, at all. And if you were important enough to be on a top-secret mission, you’d know that. And now look, your overreaction has made me dedicate far too much time to the irrelevant aside, too.

I, at no point, have accused you of censoring me. I said I doubted you would let the pingback through. I doubted that because between me generating the pingback and writing that comment, you had given attention to your blog and not let it through. It’s that simple.
What I don’t want you to do now is this: demand it must be more complex than that and assert that me trying to keep it as simple as it really is is ‘sophistry’ and ‘contortion’. Because it appears that’s what you use those words for; it’s a dismissal (not actually engaging at all) used for when I’m trying to reign in all the baggage you’re appending.

If you are talking the fact that I wrote about the unfriendly atmosphere, as well, then I think I’m justified in that. One of your about pages is very condescending about people the Praetorians disagree with, and upon reading that I had no intention of sharing what I had already written with the blog.

I have not accused the tyrants in question of not being atheist. Not even Hitler. Not even the Kims. Because that’s not the point. And you thinking that is the point only goes to show you haven’t engaged in my argument at all.

Atheism has no stance on moral questions at all. None. You can take that as permission, if you want, or you can make a big deal out of the ‘lack of prohibition’. But atheism is no more or less prohibitive on ethical questions than an affinity for art or having a moustache. This is not a “silly” throw away comment: you are accusing atheism of failing in a domain in which it does not apply. Atheism only regards the question ‘is there a God?’ and nothing else. That’s the point, and you seem to refuse to see it. I’m glad the artist analogy strikes you as patently absurd, because it parallels your argument perfectly. Being an artist is entirely permissive of violence. This is precisely because, like atheism, it doesn’t apply to moral questions.

If you acknowledge my other two posts on our discussion (and part 4 is coming soon, I just decided to break it up with some other things) you’ll see that this false-correlation you keep presenting is irrelevant. It’s not just that the correlation is not representative of the larger atheist population, but that without an explanation a correlation is irrelevant. And that’s before we get into the nature of the inclusion and exclusion criteria you’ve used: peaceful atheists are simply not part, and that’s a selection bias.

You dedicate a lot of time to the issue of where you are, but I put one sentence in about it. The one focussing on the irrelevancy is you. I also didn’t mention an IP address. All your posts come through Connecticut? Because another one came through Virginia. You’re right, it’s entirely irrelevant, and I thought I was making light of it. If an ironic or comical undertone didn’t come through, I apologise. But I’m glad it tickled your funny bone on some level.

Response:

You were not the main culprit, but you were part — and, I guess, remain part — of the Allallt-Zande-Ark threesome. They brought it up, and they made it part of an entire riff in which they, showing some serious arrogance — and ignorance at the same time — questioned my integrity and my sanity. Your post, above, tied in with that thread. I hope you’re mature enough to admit that.

I don’t brook the silliness of “I didn’t say it, so I’m not part of it.” If it was said, and you then at least tacitly endorse the accusation, as your post did above, then you are part of it, and you need to disavow it. I repeat: you never, ever, not even once had any indication whatsoever that would suggest that you should write, and I quote: “I’ll check over at his blog every now and then to see if the pingback has been allowed through moderation. But I doubt he’ll even allow that much.” The notion that I’d “moved on to other things” was a dishonest excuse.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

But you didn’t have to take it that seriously. If you’re really trying to hide your location, you should have let me believe you were in Connecticut. And, if it’s that secret, you shouldn’t divulge you’re on a secret mission in some third w:rld hell-hole, at all. And if you were important enough to be on a top-secret mission, you’d know that. And now look, your overreaction has made me dedicate far too much time to the irrelevant aside, too.

Response:

Oh? I didn’t have to take it seriously? Here are some quotes from the comments in this very blog post:

From Zande: “I suspect that is why he’s created his many online alter ego’s.(sic) He has to speak to someone, doesn’t he?”

Response from Ark: “I gave up on him. In fact I am pretty much done visiting such ****holes and in future will do what Mak does. Write a reply and link.”

Your Response (endorsing the previous questioning of my sanity and integrity): “Sounds pretty good as far as new years resolutions go.”

Here’s a quote from you, questioning my sanity: “(H)e was interesting, in a I-think-I-know-someone-who-could-diagnose-him kind of way.”

Okay… So much for your “balanced and fair” post silliness. Here’s just a bit more:
• “baffling, self-idolising blogger”
• “strange interlocutor”
• “one giant knob. It was fun to wind him up and then have him delete all my comments.” (from Ark, who never had one comment deleted. Paranoid? Ya think?!? 🙂 )
• Immature — “How can you be mature and admit to being offended by ‘mild profanity’?” Answer: (1)Who cares? (2) If you can’t imagine even one good reason why, then that speaks poorly of your upbringing or your education.
• And, of course, from the peasantesque Ark: “****hole.” (numerous times, and with numerous variations)

And all that in just this one teentsy, weentsy post! That didn’t even count Zande’s hyper-ridiculous, hyper-stupid Zlork derailment.

I am on a secret mission, and it’s in a third-world hellhole. It’s not anything, though, pertaining to serious national security, nor is it anything about which anyone will ever find the nature. I don’t mind telling everyone in this particular medium that I’m on said mission, because no one — except those who need to — will ever find out where I am or what I’m doing. It allows me to engage in picturesque speech, while at the same time letting my readers know that my response times may be slower than what they’re used to. Your little group — with your tacit endorsement — made a big thing of it. And they used their ignorance to question my character. And you allowed them to continue to question my character in your pages. And you either explicitly endorsed their scurrilous cheap shots, or endorsed them by omission.

I don’t need an apology from you; I’m just pointing out that you’re not a serious collocutor, and maybe if you were to up your game and your presentation, and have some basic standards rather than allowing puerile, ill-educated, potty-mouthed riff-raff like Ark to set them, you might be a more congenial destination for a more intelligent, better-educated crowd. If, that is, that’s a desirable objective for you. Hard to tell whether it might be.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

I have not accused the tyrants in question of not being atheist. Not even Hitler. Not even the Kims. Because that’s not the point. And you thinking that is the point only goes to show you haven’t engaged in my argument at all.

Response:

But, it is my point, and all that says is that you haven’t engaged my argument at all. Surely you remember when you said that those notables, rather than being “atheists,” were all really “anti-theists,” in an attempt to deflect from the thought tendency to which you subscribe, its well-deserved share of historical guilt for millions upon millions upon millions of murders.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

Atheism has no stance on moral questions at all. None. You can take that as permission, if you want, or you can make a big deal out of the ‘lack of prohibition’. But atheism is no more or less prohibitive on ethical questions than an affinity for art or having a moustache. This is not a “silly” throw away comment: you are accusing atheism of failing in a domain in which it does not apply. Atheism only regards the question ‘is there a God?’ and nothing else. That’s the point, and you seem to refuse to see it. I’m glad the artist analogy strikes you as patently absurd, because it parallels your argument perfectly. Being an artist is entirely permissive of violence. This is precisely because, like atheism, it doesn’t apply to moral questions.

Response:

There’s a lot here, so I’ll just cover the relevant parts.

In no particular order: You said: “Being an artist is entirely permissive of violence. This is precisely because, like atheism, it doesn’t apply to moral questions.”

Incorrect. An interest in the arts is not reasonably stretch-able to encompass moral questions. (I used the adverb: “reasonably” because I know that there are people who attempt to mis-use the arts for all sorts of nefarious purposes.)

You said: “Atheism has no stance on moral questions at all.”

Incorrect. A person stating that he believes there is no God has served notice overtly and unambiguously that he believes in no authority greater than he himself, for whatever he does from that moment on. It’s possible that this is the point you keep missing.

You said: “you are accusing atheism of failing in a domain in which it does not apply. Atheism only regards the question ‘is there a God?’ and nothing else. That’s the point, and you seem to refuse to see it.”

Incorrect. As in the previous snippet, a person stating that he believes there is no God has served notice overtly and unambiguously that all his actions from that moment on are governed by an intellectual and moral framework in which he perceives himself to be the ultimate arbiter of all that is moral or not, all that is good or not, all that is right or wrong. From twitching his little finger to running for President. A person’s atheism, just like a person’s theist belief, colors every nanosecond of his life. The atheist has said: “I am the ultimate moral authority in my life,” and that belief governs every act he ever takes. Without exception. This is not all that difficult to understand.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

If you acknowledge my other two posts on our discussion (and part 4 is coming soon, I just decided to break it up with some other things) you’ll see that this false-correlation you keep presenting is irrelevant. It’s not just that the correlation is not representative of the larger atheist population, but that without an explanation a correlation is irrelevant. And that’s before we get into the nature of the inclusion and exclusion criteria you’ve used: peaceful atheists are simply not part, and that’s a selection bias.

Response:

The only relevant part of this was the last. I addressed all the other stuff long ago (except your future post. You’ll deny this, of course, as is your wont. 🙂 )

So, for your last part: “peaceful atheists are simply not part [of the atrocities of which their brothers are guilty], and that’s a selection bias”

As for “selection bias,” I look back at all the peaceful Christians you absolved because of the depredations of a few fake ones. 🙂 Oops!!! Okay, admit it. You had that coming.

Next: There is no such thing as a peaceful atheist. There are only atheists who have decided for that moment — because, remember, they are the ultimate deciders of what is right and wrong — to be peaceful. It is perfectly permissible for any and all atheists to turn on a dime, and decide to launch as murderous a rampage as logistics allow them to commit. They did just that in Russiad, Nazi Germany, Red China, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba… etc. Read this and read it well: If those nations had had a strong Christian foundation — not just a Christian founding — then there would have been no Holocaust, no Holodomor, no socialist atrocities, no mass starvations, no gulags, no show trials, no killing fields, no Vietnam War, no Korean War, no Berlin Wall, no “Black Book of Communism,” and more.

On the other hand. In Christianity, you know — and you have always known — that you have nothing whatsoever to fear from a Quaker. Or a Shaker. Or a Mennonite, or an Amish person. Or… [fill in a thousand other denominations here.]

You can find murderers calling themselves Christians. You can find murderers calling themselves anything under the sun. But your guys are people like Manson, Dahmer, Loughner, Lanza, Roof, Wayne Williams, Gacy, McVeigh, and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of others.

You know that there is a significant percentage of Christianity — well in excess of 90%, probably 99.something% — from which you need have no fear whatsoever. You just can’t say that about atheists. Every encounter you ever have with an atheist is a crapshoot. Is this one of the “peaceful ones,” or is this a psycho? Or just a mugger, or a thief, or con man, or just a perfectly amoral person who will somehow abuse me and others? Atheism permits them all, and says nothing about their goodness, badness, rightness or wrongness.

Christianity, though, defines goodness and badness, rightness and wrongness, and makes no bones about its unambiguous disapproval of the bad and the wrong.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

If you are talking the fact that I wrote about the unfriendly atmosphere, as well, then I think I’m justified in that. One of your about pages is very condescending about people the Praetorians disagree with

Response:

That “About” page is intended to keep out the comon, ill-informed rabble — like Ark and Zande — who are less intelligent, less rational… you know, the ovine who do little more than repeat received “wisdom.” I gather that my page wasn’t condescending enough. I may have to make adjustments.

I’m constantly tickled by those people who point to my hits numbers and make fun of them. However, as anyone with half a brain should know, it’s never how many visits, but rather who visits. In that regard, I get just exactly the “numbers” I want. I fly under the radar for a lot of great reasons, some of which I explained to you in the previous post. As soon as my numbers get too high, I will have to abandon my blog and start another. Ain’t the internet grand?!? And I have no qualms about telling you that, because, in anticipation of just such a circumstance, I’ve already started several such blogs. Sweet!

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

Sooooo… did your post change things a bit? Hard to tell. I guess we’ll see whether you can pull together a post that’s not silly and ridiculous like your recent ones.

“Every encounter you ever have with an atheist is a crapshoot. Is this one of the “peaceful ones,” or is this a psycho? Or just a mugger, or a thief, or con man, or just a perfectly amoral person who will somehow abuse me and others?”

LOL. As Allalt has already pointed out to you on your blog, and which you have ever so conveniently ignored here, if this were true the prison population (in your own country) would reflect this. It does not. Atheists (who make up 20% of the US population) make up 0.07% of the federal prison population. Protestants (who make 48% of the US population) make up 28.7% of the prison population; Catholics (who make up 22% of the US population) make up 24% of the federal prison population. And this is before we deal with all other faiths where inmates believe in a “High power than themselves.”

You see, apart from simple (morbid?) curiosity, this is why it’s pointless talking to you. Apart from fabricating avatars (your “cheer squad” who all just so happen to post on the same IP), you simply cannot deal with reality… even when it is presented to you in black and white. This, of course, is reflected in you being a Young Earth Creationist; a science denier. You live in a pantomime world where you strike down imaginary dragons, and then pat yourself on the back. You truly are odd, but you are amusing.

(1) You’d provide your link. I’d read it or not (I’d read it), and (2) because you picked it out it’d be a stupid one, and (3) I’d point that out, and (4) I’d provide a countervailing link, and, because I’d already pointed out the half-wittedness of your link, whether you read the content behind my link or not (You wouldn’t. It’s intellectual work, after all.) you’d feel it necessary to try to impeach mine (because of your generally low maturity level), and (5) we’d have gone precisely nowhere.

Bottom line: I have no idea of the credibility of this organization to which you’ve linked, and it’s completely unreasonable (but not surprising) of you to demand that I do the research necessary to assess it. Especially when it’s probably really stupid (because you picked it out).

Playing dueling links is always a waste of time. That I seem to have to remind you of that constantly is tiresome. Have you had some short-term memory loss? Or is this too many words for you? I tried not to use big ones.

Yep. You just keep on telling yourself that everything you read on the internet is true, Zande.

It’s funny. That reminds me of a commercial on American television in the past year or so.

In it a young lady was telling a friend that her soon-to-arrive blind date was a French model. The friend asked her how she knew that, and she replied that she had read it on the internet. Then she said, “If it’s on the internet, it has to be true.”

Needless to say, the commercial was trying to portray the lady as, well, kinda dumb.

I have not argued that.
I have argued that it doesn’t make sense to blame their atheism.
There is something actively motivating that can explain the bad things a person does.
It’s impossible that it is atheism.
I have explained why, numerous times.

Are you accusing the American government of arresting people along faith and ethnicity lines?
That’s what we call a secondary delusion. The primary delusion was that Christians are disproportionately safe to meet. When the facts are presented, the excuse you come up with to ignore that fact is the secondary delusion.
This is why I think you’re diagnosable.
Balanced and fair.
And in an issue like this–with a completely discoverable fact, like the demographics of a prison population–your refusal to consider sources is strange. That is why you are a strange interlocutor. I explained this in the post.
Fair and balanced.

Thought exercise: imagine being a homosexual in the Bible belt. Or a Muslim of the Central African Republic. You’re walking home from a friends house when you see a group of people in the distance. Would you feel safer knowing they were atheist or Christian.

Then you get attacked. Especially in the Central African Republic.
Are you intentionally denying reality? You would be in a much more dangerous situation among Christians than atheists in those situations.

I think WordPress is organising the replies badly again. It’s coming through as if you were replying to me.
You’re right, I wouldn’t want “atheism” enforced as an ethical or political construct, because that is an incoherent idea.
At times throughout this you’ve accused atheists of holding themselves up as the arbiters of morality. You haven’t actually asked us what we believe, in terms of ethics. And when we have offered details about how we think ethics works–in my case, a league of Humanism that allows for open and honest debate between all interested parties–you haven’t really taken us at our word. You’ve gone back to atheists holding themselves as the highest arbiters of morality.
But we succumb to laws and our own morals all the time. The fact you can’t imagine a limit on our behaviour without a God is your problem (and basically the definition of what I term religious nihilism).
Ignoring the basic level-game theory of moral intuitions that are evolved into us, there’s rational discussion. They are very powerful things.

What it feels like you’re doing is this: you’re imagining two monoliths that compromise all of reality. One is the natural, and the other is the supernatural. You’re then assuming that ethics belongs in the supernatural monolith, and assuming that atheists are simply throwing out all of that monolith. That’s simply not the case.
Atheists have ethics, and with the curious exception of charity donations, there is no evidence atheists behave less morally than religious people.
And, when they do misbehave, it never makes sense to throw atheism under the bus. Missing the problem means you won’t notice it next time, and won’t be able to stop it.

I don’t know, for example, the religious views of Donald Trump. I could probably look them up. But I don’t care, because it’s not his religion that makes me worry. The fact that he has a dead animal for hair doesn’t make me worry. What makes me worry is his actual ideas. And if you’re on a Witch Hunt for atheists, you’ll miss problems like Trump (but not exactly Trump) because you’re looking in the wrong place.

“I used the “robot enforcing atheism” image to show Zande what a ridiculous idea his “robot enforcing Christian rules” was. That’s all.”

Not at all. Christians are not freed from Mosaic Law. Here is a Christian theologian explaining just that:

What Christians most often forget is how to read the whole Bible as the complete Word of God. For some, there is a misunderstanding that the Old Testament no longer applies to Christians. That would be a mistaken understanding because Jesus came to fulfill the “Law and the Prophets” (the Old Testament), but not to change a “jot or tittle” of it. Jesus did change some of the incorrect ways that the Jews were practicing the Law, but did not change the Law itself.

Jesus, not once, said you’re free. In fact, he said the exact opposite. So, our robot would enforce laws like Deuteronomy 22:28-29, where a rape victim would be forced to marry her rapist. Our robot would murder anyone suspected of sorcery Exodus 22:17, murder all homosexuals Leviticus 20:13, murder a child who hit his/her father Exodus 21:15, murder a child who cursed their parents Leviticus 20:9, murder unfaithful partners Leviticus 20:10, murder all followers of other religions Exodus 22:19/2 Chronicles 15:12-13/Deuteronomy 13:7-12, murder anyone working on the Sabbath Exodus 31:12-15, murder anyone who didn’t listen to a priest Deuteronomy 17:12…. I could go on.

The point isn’t just the content of the new testament. The point is nothing in the new testament actually frees people from the old testament rules,but explicitly says they still apply. So the old testament also applies.

Thought exercise: imagine being a homosexual in the Bible belt. Or a Muslim of the Central African Republic. You’re walking home from a friends house when you see a group of people in the distance. Would you feel safer knowing they were atheist or Christian.

Don’t get it in context? The rules/commands/laws presented in the bible, if carried through on without consideration or deviation, would produce a living hell-hole… Children being stoned to death for cursing their parents, people eating their children as punishment for disobedience (Lev 26:27-30), rape victims being forced to marry their rapist, killed for eating shrimp, slavery, murdered on suspicion of sorcery…

Oh, and Praetorius, let’s take this example one step further, shall we? If your ludicrous (yet hilarious) statement above were true, we’d see an awful lot of scientists in jail, right? I mean, 93% of the National Academy of Sciences are atheist. That number goes up to an impressive 98% when you count only the hard sciences, like biology.

Here’s the opening few words on the article, “Does It Matter That Many Scientists Are Atheists?” published on Catholic Answers.

One fact that concerns some Christians and elates some atheists is that 93 percent of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the most elite scientific organizations in the United States, do not believe in God.

So, Praetorius, can you show me the corresponding atheist-scientist prison population data?

More statistical hogwash, and meaningless talking points from the king of flapdoodle: John Zande.

Scientists are not immune from being stupid either. I would guess that stupid scientists would, like birds, flock together… generally in organizations named things like, “National Academy of Sciences.”

Besides, atheism in the sciences is nothing more than a modern-era fad. It’ll turn around and they’ll look back at their previous nitwittery and wonder how in the world they fell for it all.

Einstein, for example, was considered pretty bright, fairly well-educated… a real, no-foolin’ scientist… but he said some howlingly stupid things about international relations and the like. Things as stupid as the things you said about your ridiculous Zlork. That stupid.

In other words, Zande, there’s no reason under the sun that a scientist — even one with six PhD’s — should have one more teentsy, weentsy iota of insight into the existence of God than the lowliest of manual laborers in a remote third-world hellhole.

Your unattractive snobbery is showing here, Zande.

Try to remember, Zande: highly-educated is not necessarily well-educated.

He’s telling the truth. He’s really not going to show you.
That means we can discard his point entirely. His source could be his imagination, a fiction book, a tea-leaf reading. Anything. So, it is discarded.
Whereas, the Patheos article we’ve discussed is from a Freedom of Information request. It is much more reliable than that nothing Prae is offering.
Which is disappointing. I’d love to have a real discussion. He can’t offer one.

Watch this, this comment will be seen as us colluding, making us the same person, therefore Prae can refer to us as an ‘ilk’, waste wordcount on explaining why he feels like a victim having his point held to any level of scrutiny, and then not address the issue.

I consider having your point held to a level of scrutiny a mark of respect. It would be disrespectful to read it and think ‘he’s clearly not smart enough to adjust his views in the light of well-reasoned argument and evidence’. Although, I’m headed that way.

That’s what the data says.
If you’ve got data from a prison service that contradicts that, please share it. If, however, you’ve got a link from Truth.org or NaturalNews or Collective Evolution, perhaps you should keep that link to your self, and do a little introspection about why you care about their input at all.

Right, well, with that, I’m contented that I’m not the one standing in the way of intelligent conversation.
Atheists do not assume they as individuals are the arbiter of right and wrong. You tell me I’m wrong about the artist parallel, while agreeing with me perfectly. You focus primarily on form, not content. You’ve implicitly accused me of maligning Christians based on a few Christian tyrants (which I haven’t done).
And I do think I know someone who could diagnose you. You show signs of both primary and secondary delusions, possibly characteristics of narcissism and grandeur. You refuse to see that being atheist in no way explains atrocities (although certain anti-theism can). You think being condescending will deter instead of motivate people.
Encountering an atheist is no more a crapshoot than meeting a theist. Statistics from prisons suggest meeting religious people is the real gamble; atheists are massively under-represented, and America has a larger problem with violence (especially in schools) than other equally developed, less religious countries. You can’t seem to get that the Nazis were Christians motivated by Christian rhetoric.

See, you’re not here to actually intellectually discuss an issue. You’re here to preach. And to do that, you’ve come to knock over the chess pieces and declare your victory, instead of actually engaging properly.

Right, well, with that, I’m contented that I’m not the one standing in the way of intelligent conversation.

Response:

Okay, if you wish to think that. However, the hostile environment that you established, and that you continue to foster speaks ill of you and of your pretense that you’re not standing in the way of intelligent conversation.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

Atheists do not assume they as individuals are the arbiter of right and wrong. You tell me I’m wrong about the artist parallel, while agreeing with me perfectly. You focus primarily on form, not content. You’ve implicitly accused me of maligning Christians based on a few Christian tyrants (which I haven’t done).

Response:

Well, yes, atheists state that they are the arbiter of right and wrong for themselves. And, really, that’s all that counts. Hitler, Stalin, et al, didn’t care one jot what others considered to be right or wrong.

You said: “You tell me I’m wrong about the artist parallel, while agreeing with me perfectly. You focus primarily on form, not content. You’ve implicitly accused me of maligning Christians based on a few Christian tyrants (which I haven’t done).”

In what world do you live?!? (1) I told you where you were wrong with the artist nonsense. (2) I focus nearly entirely on content, and spend a good deal of my time suggesting that you do likewise, instead of obsessing over IP addresses and the like. (3) Attempt to malign Christians is precisely what you’ve done, while doing your level best to absolve your thought tendency of all responsibility for its role in millions upon millions of atrocities in the last century alone. Wow!

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

And I do think I know someone who could diagnose you. You show signs of both primary and secondary delusions, possibly characteristics of narcissism and grandeur. You refuse to see that being atheist in no way explains atrocities (although certain anti-theism can). You think being condescending will deter instead of motivate people.

Response:

My point exactly: You’re not a serious interlocutor, because you, along with the half-wit Ark, and the loony Zande are more concerned with who I am, or rather who you silly arm-chair psychologists think I am, as opposed to what I say. I’m not surprised. It’s how most people proceed when they’re out of intellectual gas. The point: even if I did have “primary and secondary delusions, [and] possibly characteristics of narcissism and grandeur“, so what? Despite these terrible handicaps, I’m apparently able to put words down on a web page that you seem to have no arguments to counter, except these feeble derailments and diversions.

So, I’ll tell you what, I’ll let you call me crazy (’cause, frankly, I don’t care about your opinion of me. I hope you feel the same about my opinion of you 🙂 ), and we’ll be done with that little irrelevancy. Now, why don’t you concentrate on the words.

One last time: Being an atheist helps to explain atrocities in that the atheist is missing certain extremely important limits on his behavior that, for example, Christians have. That Buddhists have. That Jews have. An atheist is just like an Islamic jihadist, except that where the atheist lacks prohibition to commit atrocities, the jihadist believes that he has explicit permission, even a command, to commit atrocities. Bottom line: both commit atrocities. Lots and lots and lots and lots of ’em. The millions upon millions upon millions of victims probably fail to appreciate the distinctions that are so important to the sophists who would pretend that atheism is not a factor in massive death dealing.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

Encountering an atheist is no more a crapshoot than meeting a theist. Statistics from prisons suggest meeting religious people is the real gamble; atheists are massively under-represented, and America has a larger problem with violence (especially in schools) than other equally developed, less religious countries. You can’t seem to get that the Nazis were Christians motivated by Christian rhetoric.

Response:

Wrong on the first count. You know that encountering an atheist is a crapshoot. By definition. You also have near perfect confidence that to encounter, for example, a Christian, represents a near 100% chance that you’re safe. This is simply true, and you know it. And, I have a secret argument, that I’m holding, possibly, for the next reply of yours.

Next: America has very little problem with violence in schools. America has a problem with media fads. When the media stop fixating on “school violence” the shootings will nearly disappear. Simple as that. If you wish to consider that an indictment of the American people, I have two words for you: President Obama. The average American, let’s face it, is not paying attention. He is pretty much led by the media and pop culture. If the media were to fixate all of a sudden on, oh I don’t know, ladybugs, just watch how fast we’d all be tearing our hair out about the “ladybug crisis.” That phenomenon explains entirely, eg, the environmental movement.

Next: the prison statistics are wrong, and they’re meaningless even if they were right.

Next: The part about Christian rhetoric intermingling with Naziism is partially correct. Yes, Hitler tried to sell his atheism to a Christian country. No one doubts that Hitler was a marketing master. However, the ideas he espoused were not, in any way, Christian. Since Hitler came to power via election, this is another indictment of democracy itself. Mind you, I’m a big fan of democracy. Hitler was an atheist trying to package atheitic thinking for a largely secular, but nominally Christian country. Again, the indictment goes against atheism. If you want to try to make the case that Hitler was a good Christian, or that Naziism represents good Christian thinking, then that indicts your thinking.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

See, you’re not here to actually intellectually discuss an issue. You’re here to preach. And to do that, you’ve come to knock over the chess pieces and declare your victory, instead of actually engaging properly.

Response:

To some extent I did what your second sentence suggests. On purpose. You have, as you’ve admitted, no standards. I took advantage of that. It was kind of fun. Zande did the same thing on my blog, but I have standards there, to which I adhere, and to which I expect others to adhere. Zande opened the door here — go ahead, read the comments on this post. He insulted me and questioned my integrity and sanity. As did you. I therefore felt no qualms about unloading on him. Of course, if you had any standards here, then you wouldn’t have allowed the gratuitous, and stupid, insults to have got through. To question my integrity or sanity contributes nothing to moving forward the discussion of the topic. You purport to be an intellectual — by your tone and wirting — yet you allow poorly educated half-wits like Zande and Ark to say what they want and to debase your content.

As to your first sentence: Re-read the comments — top-to-bottom — on this post. I need say nothing more than that.

As to your second sentence: That’s an opinion. I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell you what I’m here for, and we’ll let that determine why I’m here. I’ll extend to you the same courtesy. Okay?

(1) I know you told me I was wrong about the artist parallel. But, then you said “An interest in the arts is not reasonably stretch-able to encompass moral questions”. Precisely. Neither does atheism.
(2) You don’t address content. You actively refuse to address content. You instead accuse and refuse evidence and mock.
(3) Find me one quote of me where I have maligned Christians for the acts of a few Christian tyrants.
It’s not psychology. It’s psychiatry. And, I’m not interested in the fact you may be diagnosable, but that the ideas you are presenting are the symptoms. Each idea I have entirely rebutted, and you’ve simply stated them again. You ignore my rebuttals by calling me a sophist. That’s not engaging with content, by the way.

Christians do not have that limit to their behaviour. That’s why some picket funerals and some are homophobes and some are sexists, and people have killed in God’s name and believe they were commanded directly by God to kill. The “limit” you imagine didn’t stop the Nazis nor the Crusaders. It’s shown no favour to the Lord’s Liberation Army or the Christians slaying Muslims in the Central African Republic. Christians have no greater limit to their behaviour than atheists. Christians are over represented and atheists are under represented in American prisons.
Which take me back to the point I am making: art is not meant to answer questions of morality and ethics, so it would simply be a category mistake to say it ‘fails’ with respect to morality or in anyway motivates bad behaviour. The same is true of atheism.

As for this weird crapshoot thing: yes, near 100% safety encountering Christians. Same is true for atheists. Same is not true of me if I am a Muslim in Central African Republic, or if I am gay in the Deep South of America. And, again, Christians are commited of crimes at a rate disproportionately high relative to their population, and for atheists the complete opposite it true.
These are what the facts on the matter look like. They really don’t map to your assertions at all.

I didn’t realise that school shootings didn’t happen under Bush. You know why I didn’t notice that? Because it’s not true. America is the most religious developed country and it has the highest problem with school violence and shooting. Clearly, being massively religious hasn’t been a prohibition on school shootings. But, hey, facts. I’m sure you’ll say I’m wrong, not tell me what the real facts are, disregard sources and go back to making assertions that run contrary to the facts. Because, that’s the conversation we’ve been having.
It’s not the media, either. It’s the actual numbers (per capita) of people attacked in schools. Facts. You have a problem with facts.

I’m not saying anything about “Good” Christianity. I’m simply saying the people doing committing the horrors with Christians. I’m saying that your claim that religions offer some sort of prohibition, that means encountering a religious person is less of a gamble than encountering an atheist, is contradicted by the evidence. Hitler, who you claim is an atheist (and I really don’t think he is — but why would I argue with you? I’m not allowed to present sources. Because: reasons), is not solely to blame. The foot soldiers of the Holocaust were the Nazis, and they were Christian. So, you can take your presumption of religious prohibition to bad behaviour and shove it up your arse. It is contradicted by facts.

What I have is an open forum. Zande can say what he likes. If I think something has become gratuitous, I will interject. If Ark comes over here, I probably will end up interjecting, I find the way he conducts himself to be counter-productive. But I don’t find Zande has done anything wrong. Doubting your sanity can be done with good reason. Doubting your integrity can be done with good reason.

So, your input has been duly noted and has been taken under consideration.

(1) I know you told me I was wrong about the artist parallel. But, then you said “An interest in the arts is not reasonably stretch-able to encompass moral questions”. Precisely. Neither does atheism.

Response:

You were wrong about the artist parallel. There is no artist parallel.

You’re wrong about atheism. It is a significant part of a world-view. You say that “atheism” is merely a label to describe someone’s assertion that he’s not convinced of the existence of God. That is more properly agnosticism. However, tell ya what. Since I’m a nice guy, and you’re not, I’ll stipulate to that definition.

All that means, though is that the concept of atheism occupies a continuum that also covers other “atheisms.”

The one that Marx envisioned was an active, affirming, assertive atheism that you then tried to re-brand as anti-theism. Okay, let’s stipulate to that too! Marxism is an anti-theistic flavor of atheism.

Doesn’t change anything. Atheism still stands in the dock as a vital ingredient in the murder of hundreds of millions.

A thought exercise: A man is a professional basketball player and a professional baseball player. He murders someone while he’s playing baseball. When they come to arrest him, he quickly changes into his basketball uniform and says, you can’t arrest me, it was the baseball player who did it. I’m a basketball player. Ridiculous, right? Yet, it’s your reasoning.

You seem to think that when atheists commit atrocities, all of a sudden they become something else, so that atheism remains unsullied. The point is that it is atheism that makes anti-theism possible. There are no “anti-theist” Christians. Nor is “anti-theism” even possible in Christianity, obviously. If anti-theism made ’em do it, as it certainly played a role, then atheism still stands in the dock. Yes, it stands there with “Bad Ideology” as well. Atheism is one of Bad Ideology’s chief enablers. It’s Communism’s Suslov, or at various times, its Beria, or Kalinin, or Kamenev, Zinoviev, Dzerzhinsky, Yezhov, or Bukharin.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

(2) You don’t address content. You actively refuse to address content. You instead accuse and refuse evidence and mock.

Response:

Hogwash. I’ve addressed your content repeatedly and from many different angles. If I haven’t recently, then it’s because you all decided to go from producing content to producing only cheap insults.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

(3) Find me one quote of me where I have maligned Christians for the acts of a few Christian tyrants.

Response:

Weasel words. There are not a lot of Christian tyrants one can point to. Second: in a comment I haven’t yet commented on, you insist that in the Central African Republic, Christians would attack homosexuals. You have used that to malign Christianity, and therefore, Christians. You have done this numerous times. The distinction that I make is simple: A Christian is wrong to attack, unprovided, anyone. An atheist is never wrong — in his moral universe — to attack anyone at anytime. More to the point, you’re in no poistion to condemn his actions.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

It’s not psychology. It’s psychiatry. And, I’m not interested in the fact you may be diagnosable, but that the ideas you are presenting are the symptoms. Each idea I have entirely rebutted, and you’ve simply stated them again. You ignore my rebuttals by calling me a sophist. That’s not engaging with content, by the way.

Response:

Hogwash, and I don’t care. I’ve entirely rebutted each of your ideas, yet you seem to feel the need to contradict that fact, and then you try to say you rebutted them again.

Are you forgetting that you invited me here? Did you want to talk about something other than the topic of your post? I’m sorry. You didn’t say that anywhere. Or were you expecting me to come on over and just sing praises to your surpassing wisdom? And you call me diagnosable? Some host you are! Sheesh!

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

Christians do not have that limit to their behaviour. That’s why some picket funerals and some are homophobes and some are sexists, and people have killed in God’s name and believe they were commanded directly by God to kill. The “limit” you imagine didn’t stop the Nazis nor the Crusaders. It’s shown no favour to the Lord’s Liberation Army or the Christians slaying Muslims in the Central African Republic. Christians have no greater limit to their behaviour than atheists. Christians are over represented and atheists are under represented in American prisons.

Response:

• All Christians have that limit to their behavior. Some choose to ignore it. Or to violate it. Duh!
• The Nazis weren’t Christians.
• “Christians have no greater limit to their behaviour than atheists.” — Obviously incorrect, and really stupid. And you call me stupid.
• “Christians are over represented and atheists are under represented in American prisons.” — Aaaaand…meaningless.
Etc… Man! You’re like a little child! You think that if you say it over and over and over and over again, that’ll somehow make it true.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

Which take me back to the point I am making: art is not meant to answer questions of morality and ethics, so it would simply be a category mistake to say it ‘fails’ with respect to morality or in anyway motivates bad behaviour. The same is true of atheism.

Response:

Incorrect about atheism. I covered it above, where I stipulated to a whole bunch of your stuff, and still that indicts atheism as an essential ingredient in the crimes against humanity of the 20th Century, and other times.

Look, I get it. Atheism is an essential ingredient in some seriously bad stuff, and you’re an atheist, so you’re feeling defensive, and you feel the need to deflect and call me crazy and question my integrity and call me stupid, but that doesn’t cange anything, and you know it, and that, I suspect, bothers you immensely. I don’t blame you.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

As for this weird crapshoot thing: yes, near 100% safety encountering Christians. Same is true for atheists. Same is not true of me if I am a Muslim in Central African Republic, or if I am gay in the Deep South of America. And, again, Christians are commited of crimes at a rate disproportionately high relative to their population, and for atheists the complete opposite it true. These are what the facts on the matter look like. They really don’t map to your assertions at all.

Response:

Meaningless red herrings. And, those are not facts. They are your meaningless, substanceless, context-less assertions.

Another thing you feel the need to do: transport us to prison, and to Central Africa, and to Deep South America. I understand. If I were an atheist, I’d want to draw the conversation away from the actual topic into massive new conceptual cans of worms as well. None of the Central African Republic-prison-South America stuff is meaningful absent context, which can’t be had in this particular thread unless we decide that it’s going to turn into a massive tome as the one on my blog did. So, if you want to continue to say meaningless, red herring-type stuff, go right ahead. It’s your blog. I’ll stick to the subject, okay?

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

I didn’t realise that school shootings didn’t happen under Bush. You know why I didn’t notice that? Because it’s not true. America is the most religious developed country and it has the highest problem with school violence and shooting. Clearly, being massively religious hasn’t been a prohibition on school shootings. But, hey, facts. I’m sure you’ll say I’m wrong, not tell me what the real facts are, disregard sources and go back to making assertions that run contrary to the facts. Because, that’s the conversation we’ve been having.
It’s not the media, either. It’s the actual numbers (per capita) of people attacked in schools. Facts. You have a problem with facts.

Response:

More meaningless, substanceless, context-less red herrings. I told you why on the prison idea. Why don’t you stop opening new huge cans-of-worms, you’re starting to sound desperate. Red herrings. You have a problem with irrelevant red herrings. Oh, and with defensiveness.

Now can you stop with the irrelevant red herrings, diversions and distractions?

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

I’m not saying anything about “Good” Christianity. I’m simply saying the people doing committing the horrors with Christians. I’m saying that your claim that religions offer some sort of prohibition, that means encountering a religious person is less of a gamble than encountering an atheist, is contradicted by the evidence. Hitler, who you claim is an atheist (and I really don’t think he is — but why would I argue with you? I’m not allowed to present sources. Because: reasons), is not solely to blame. The foot soldiers of the Holocaust were the Nazis, and they were Christian. So, you can take your presumption of religious prohibition to bad behaviour and shove it up your arse. It is contradicted by facts.

You said: “I’m simply saying the people doing committing the horrors with Christians.” — This was incoherent.

You said: “I’m saying that your claim that religions offer some sort of prohibition…” — No. I was more forceful. Christianity lays down explicit prohibitions against initiating violence against anyone. Duh!

You said: “The foot soldiers of the Holocaust were the Nazis, and they were Christian” — Meaningless. I dealt with this many times. Refer to past posts. I’m starting to understand something here. You don’t read what I write! Okay… that certainly changes things a great deal. It’s not that you don’t know what you’re talking about, with all this thrashing about, it’s that you don’t know what I’m talking about!

You said: “So, you can take your presumption of religious prohibition to bad behaviour and shove it up your arse. It is contradicted by facts.” — Incorrect. Your pique is showing. You’re showing your lack of standards again. Speaks poorly of your thinking, and of your maturity level.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

What I have is an open forum. Zande can say what he likes. If I think something has become gratuitous, I will interject. If Ark comes over here, I probably will end up interjecting, I find the way he conducts himself to be counter-productive. But I don’t find Zande has done anything wrong. Doubting your sanity can be done with good reason. Doubting your integrity can be done with good reason.

Response:

Zande’s been a complete buffoon. His very first comment — the very first comment — right out of the box, in this very post was, and I quote: “Praetorius has to rank as one of the most baffling, self-idolising bloggers i have ever encountered… Possibly also suffering from a severe and worrying multiple personality disorder.”

Since you called me stupid (in a post I haven’t yet responded to), I feel justified in asking you: Are you a blithering idiot? 🙂 That’s perfectly okay with you?!? You don’t find that counter-productive?!? And you then have the nerve to write this: “I’d love to have a real discussion. He can’t offer one.” Yeah, right! Okay.

See? I read what you write. I extend to you at least that basic courtesy.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –You said:

So, your input has been duly noted and has been taken under consideration.

Imagine a woman-hating psychopath who kills prostitutes. As is common among psychopaths and sociopaths, this killer also plays an instrument.
Then, playing an instrument is indicted as the cause of his murderous behaviour, not his psychopathy or misogyny.

I don’t think the fact Christians are attacking Muslim in the Central African Republic is an attack on all Christians. I haven’t said Christianity is to blame. The fact you think pointing out that fact Christians are attacking Muslims or that Christians attacked homosexuals is maligning Christianity, then you’re stupid. If you think me pointing out the attacks of Christians is the the same as you blaming the Holocaust on atheism, then you’re stupid.
If you think you’ve addressed my points, then you’re stupid.
If you think I can write anything about you in a post you’ve already responded to, you’re an idiot.
If you think atheists think attacking people unprovoked is okay, you’re an idiot.
If you think atheism is necessarily the same as nihilism, then you’re a nihilist. And not a good one.

Sorry, so focussed on not understanding why you can’t use a source to establish facts that I forgot that if you don’t like it, it’s a label.
You do fit the ‘religious nihilist’ description though. If I send you a post that discusses it, can you let me know if it normally falls under a different name? I hesitate to think I invented the concept.

That means we can discard his point entirely. His source could be his imagination, a fiction book, a tea-leaf reading. Anything. So, it is discarded.

Whereas, the Patheos article we’ve discussed is from a Freedom of Information request. It is much more reliable than that nothing Prae is offering.

Which is disappointing. I’d love to have a real discussion. He can’t offer one.

Watch this, this comment will be seen as us colluding, making us the same person, therefore Prae can refer to us as an ‘ilk’, waste wordcount on explaining why he feels like a victim having his point held to any level of scrutiny, and then not address the issue.

I consider having your point held to a level of scrutiny a mark of respect. It would be disrespectful to read it and think ‘he’s clearly not smart enough to adjust his views in the light of well-reasoned argument and evidence’. Although, I’m headed that way.

Do you really find it that difficult to understand my reluctance to play dueling sources? Holy mackerel! Where do you live, in a cave in the Philippines? Let’s try it another way: Do you really think there are no sources I could find that would support my point of view? Okay. We agree that there are sources — lots of them — that I could dig up that would support my point-of-view. As I agree that there are sources — lots of them — that would support your point of view. However, since I don’t think you ‘re an honest debater, I don’t believe there are any sources I could use that you wouldn’t automatically condemn as somehow illegitimate. You believe the same about me. So, seriously, what point would there be in going through the time and effort to find sources that neither of us believes the other will take seriously?

So, again, let’s just stipulate that I have lots of sources. You and I both know that there are millions of pro-Christian, pro-theism web sites , documents, books, tracts, treatises, essays, scientists, academicians, thinkers, philosophers, lay thinkers out there. They’re of varying degrees of academic sophistication from the very simple to the hyper-learned, and all points in-between. I know the same about pro-atheist (for lack of a better term) web sites and sources. Can we now be done with your obsession over the stupid dueling sources moose poo now? Does that make it comprehensible to you?

This is one of the reasons why I level the sophist charge: because this is not a difficult thing to understand. I’m forced to wonder whether your bafflement is on purpose. I recognize that it might put you at a disadvantage, since I suspect you just might be at a loss without your “experts” to fall back on, but try to soldier on anyway. My way means a whole heckuva lot less wasted time in trying to assess the legitimacy of someone else’s source. Sheesh!

You said: “Whereas, the Patheos article we’ve discussed is from a Freedom of Information request. It is much more reliable than that nothing Prae is offering.”

Oh? Not if it’s wrong. Or meaningless. Absent context, it is, as I’ve described, perfectly meaningless. So, what’s the point of offering it? Here’s one reason: what faith inmates say they adhere to in prison means nothing. What they were before they went into prison tells a lot more. An FOI response tells something if and only if someone has posed the right question in obtaining the information.

You said:

Watch this, this comment will be seen as us colluding, making us the same person, therefore Prae can refer to us as an ‘ilk’, waste wordcount on explaining why he feels like a victim having his point held to any level of scrutiny, and then not address the issue.

Response:

Let’s see. Let’s do a word count on the word “ilk.” Well, well… it appears only once… where you used it (and now this second time.) You do waste everyone’s time on irelevancies, don’t you! Of course, if you can continue to deflect and evade, then you can also continue to dodge the real topic.

I don’t feel like a victim at all. I just feel as if I’m talking to the wall. I’ve given up on Zande and Ark. They may not be bumbling, half-witted fools, but they play them in blog posts, and I don’t have the patience to deal with their half-wittery. You on the other hand, Allallt, appeawr not to be a total lost cause.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

I consider having your point held to a level of scrutiny a mark of respect. It would be disrespectful to read it and think ‘he’s clearly not smart enough to adjust his views in the light of well-reasoned argument and evidence’. Although, I’m headed that way.

Response:

And now you call me stupid. To add to crazy and all the rest. Such a friendly little place you run here! No wonder Zande and Ark are regular contributors! It is kind of fun to read of how you supposedly disapprove of all the things I do… which you then just do in the very next breath.

I haven’t called you stupid. But, I will: you’re stupid.
But I haven’t called you crazy, and I really won’t.
I think you’re stupid because when it comes to supporting facts you are simply asserting we’re wrong and that the facts don’t matter. You’re claiming it’s not even true that atheists are under represented in prison populations (relative to their proportions in the general population). You’re claiming that even if that is true, it doesn’t matter as a metric for the behaviour of the groups. But you won’t actually cite sources, and your excuse literally boils down to not wanting/being able to exercise critical thinking to tell an opinion piece from fiction from facts. And that’s your problem.

Ever so charitable of you. No skin off your back. Zande and Ark already called me crazy, so it’s done. Considering the sources — one who thinks that crystals and rocks are living and suffering, and the other who thinks that if archaelogists can’t find evidence of The Flood, then the Bible is completely discredited — I’m not upset about it. Now, if someone sane or intelligent (you opened that door!) called me crazy, then I might worry. 🙂

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

I think you’re stupid because when it comes to supporting facts you are simply asserting we’re wrong and that the facts don’t matter. You’re claiming it’s not even true that atheists are under represented in prison populations (relative to their proportions in the general population). You’re claiming that even if that is true, it doesn’t matter as a metric for the behaviour of the groups. But you won’t actually cite sources, and your excuse literally boils down to not wanting/being able to exercise critical thinking to tell an opinion piece from fiction from facts. And that’s your problem.

Response:

I never said that facts don’t matter. Man! Outside of the Race Grievance Industry, I never found anyone who could fabricate strawmen like you! Facts matter. Relevant facts matter. Produce some — the prison thing is meaningless — and we’ll talk about them. Sheesh! I’m still talking to a little kid!

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

You’re claiming that even if that is true, it doesn’t matter as a metric for the behaviour of the groups. But you won’t actually cite sources, and your excuse literally boils down to not wanting/being able to exercise critical thinking to tell an opinion piece from fiction from facts. And that’s your problem.

Response:

Actually, this incoherent jumble appears to be your problem. I have no problem with not playing dueling sources. You seem to be the one who can’t live without his security blanket.

Sources are not a security blanket.
Watch this:
All Christians are paedophiles. I know this because I’m super-duper clever and I have sources, but I won’t let you inspect them, but I’m right. I am right.

Actually, the word “lack” should be “doubt”, I changed perspective and failed to fully correct my sentence.
I get that you think we’ll just claim that sources lack credibility. But, that’s a poor excuse. You haven’t even tried it.
If you cite sources for big, vague claims, like atheism is to blame for the Holocaust, then yes, we’ll doubt the source.
However, if we’re discussing the criminality of varying religious groups, numbers have to come from a study of some sort.
Who are you hoping cite? NaturalNews?

Our debate — yours and mine — (Zande and Ark are too stupid and poorly educated) is on the theoretical/metaphysical level.

There are no sources, other than super-esoteric ones, that can be brought to bear in that realm. ‘Sides, any such sources would be stating purely subjective things. I can do that, and, I’d think, so can you.

However, that does bring us to an interesting point. If your atheism is based only on what others say, then you’re a phony. Or at least your atheism is phony. What do you think? (Hint: that’s not a question you’re supposed to answer here, but rather to yourself.)

I’m not interested in what others think. I’m interested in what you think.

Do you really think there are no sources I could find that would support my point of view? Okay. We agree that there are sources — lots of them — that I could dig up that would support my point-of-view.

No, I don’t agree. Produce your source, or admit you are just making things up, again….

It’s true that another person could have made it up and written it down and xPrae could use that as a source.
xPrae seems to be denying there can be any sort of critical thinking to actually weigh up the difference between good and bad sources.
Which is fine. If xPrae’s views are based on a collection of shit-awful sources he’s too embarrassed to present, then he can be dismissed.
I wish I’d cottoned on earlier, I could have been a Holocaust denier. Like xPrae, I could have taken the stance that ‘facts don’t matter, this is my position and I’m sticking to it. No, stop giving me facts. I refuse your facts. It’s hogwash. You’re a sophist. Stop wasting me time. Why aren’t you taking my ridiculous stance seriously? I demand to be taken seriously. I am now going to talk at length about the integrity of people involved to deflect away from how stupid my position is, but then occasionally allude to the fact my position is uninfluenced by reason and facts. You’re all children. I’m on a secret military mission and am very clever and can see into the future and therefore I am right.’

If only I’d realised these rules of engagement earlier.
(Yes, xPrae, I am mocking you.)

Thanks for all this, as it illustrates my point perfectly. Your quote: “It’s true that another person could have made it up and written it down and xPrae could use that as a source.” is true.

Equally true, obviously, is “It’s true that another person could have made it up and written it down and Allallt (or Zande or Ark) could use that as a source.”

You then said: “xPrae seems to be denying there can be any sort of critical thinking to actually weigh up the difference between good and bad sources.”

No. I said I lack the time or the motivation to dig into your sources to assess their validity properly. If you have that kind of time, then good for you. I don’t.

You then said: “Which is fine. If xPrae’s views are based on a collection of s***it-awful sources he’s too embarrassed to present, then he can be dismissed.”

Thank you for that! You would automatically insist that my sources are as you so colorfully described them whether they were or not. Hence, no point to it. You did see, did you not, how you, Zande and Ark quite frequently said things like, “And don’t quote [this guy] or [that guy], ’cause that would make you a [this] or a [that] and that would automatically disqualify you from ever saying anything again.” Your modus operandi is to try to discredit sources. It’s a stupid modus operandi, so I choose not to play the stupid game.

Again, it’s all rather stark evidence that playing dueling sources is stupid.

Sources are needed for establishing data and facts. These things should inform an argument.
The opinions of clever people are not a useful source. Neither is the heavily processed evaluation of people without access to the actual data.
I assume you knew that and that your disdain of sources is because you don’t have the data.
Yes, you may be able to find people who espouse a view. But that is not a reliable source.

You people are exasperatingly ridiculous, and you say the stupidest things.

I’ve made the case for my point about your holy writ: sources, and I don’t need to make it again.

Furthermore, Zande, in his use of sources, each time has further made my case for me.

Allallt, you were almost there… you had almost started to get into a proper discussion about things, when you allowed the half-wit Zande to jump in with a blizzard of red herrings. I have to guess you did that because you understood that the discussion was not one in which you could do well.

And, Zande: The “Re-establishment of Israel” makes my point for me. I won’t go through the bother of explaining it all to you, but here’s a hint: It didn’t happen in a vacuum.

I see that your understanding of WWII and its aftermath is rudimentary at best. If you get up-to-speed on that topic, you’ll see that even if Ben-Gurion had been Stalin he couldn’t have set up a totalitarian state in Israel. Furthermore, maybe he was just, as Allallt says, not an anti-theist-type of atheist.

I point out to you that your ally — the IQ-deprived Zande — brought up the distractions, with his lists and his Hitler delusions. You joined right in with him. The distractions are your fault. Should I simply ignore the owner of the blog? I don’t think so.

You selective reply to things you think you can characterise as a distraction. You acknowledged I made real points, but didn’t address them in favor of attempting to characterise things as a distraction.

That doesn’t make any sense at all. You had previously said the list of atheist leaders didn’t enact tyrannical states because they assumed power on top of existing structures.

Well, Israel had no existing political/bureaucratic/military/education structure when the atheist, David Ben-Gurion, took the reigns of this non-existent country, molding it and it’s institutions from the ground up.

We’re not pretending anything. You claimed atheists are not under-represented in prison, so that’s the contention we’re discussing. It’s a discoverable fact. We’ve shared a document released by the freedom of information act. And you’ve presented ‘nuh-uh, no way, don’t care. Now watch me whip. Now watch me nae nae’.

I have provided actual figures of the religious persuasion of the US federal prison population. This information comes from the US Federal Prisons Admin. You really can’t get more black and white than that.

I don’t know who that is. My facile-American artillery is quote limited.
But, we’ve seen him on TV. But he’s also in the third world.
Bear Grylls? Andy McNab?
If he was someone in my class, I would really advise that he see the counsellor, just in case I am right and what he’s doing is symptomatic of quite serious personality disorders. They can be managed. I kind of fitter between his massive self-importance and seeming narcissism being very funny and quite concerning.

But, we’ve seen him on TV. But he’s also in the third world… and so terribly concerned about becoming too fantastically famous that he kills his blogs when they start to attract enormous numbers of readers. Something he’s been forced to do a number a times.

Googled the numbers of atheists in prison. Nothing to support you.
Your point, about knowing their religion at the point of incarceration is a valid one, but not a particularly powerful one. There is this dubious article on Wikpedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_to_Islam_in_U.S._prisons). It’s dubious because it doesn’t given any of the details you might want answers to, like how many converts does this 80% account for?
I tried following the sources in the Wiki page and that didn’t throw up anything to support you, either.
So, you’ve got one objection that levers in a little doubt, but not a lot.

Note to all: Before Zande, Ark and Allallt opened the floodgates wide open, it should be noted that I never once questioned anyone’s:
• Character
• Integrity
• Intelligence
• Sanity

I was tempted to suggest that we all call a truce (as that would suit my purposes best, since I have no need for the cheap insult/denigration tactics), but I’m kind of having fun with the fish in this particular barrel (Look it up. It’s an expression).

So, I’ll note for the record that I didn’t start any of the invective, but I guess I’m content to join in since you guys did.

However, the rules remain unchanged at my place. I’m just enjoying the lack of standards here. It allows me to let my hair down a bit.

I texted Michele and Sarah. They thank you for thinking I’m them. My description of myself is right in my blog. I’m a tall-ish white dude (6’4″) former professional athlete, turned television/radio personality/pitchman/announcer/professional “voice.” I’m an author. I’ve written eleven books on a variety of topics. Working on a twelfth. You’ve seen me and heard me, and you’ll still never figure out who I am. I’ve never been controversial in the slightest, so don’t look for any scandal or dirt. There isn’t any.

And, as I mentioned before, I’m a dude. Now, can we forget about who I am, and talk about the topic? You don’t see me obsessing over who you are, do you? Why? ‘Cause I don’t care. You shouldn’t care either, about who I am.

We haven’t pretended to be someone important and secretive. John even uses his real name. You’re the one invoking curiosity and then complaining that we talk about it.
To be honest, though, laughing at your sense of self worth is a lot more fun than reading your repeated claim about atheism. I’ve read your claim. Atheism offers no prohibitions. I get it. It’s not a problem. Art doesn’t offer prohibition either. But you think too much of yourself to actually engage with the rebuttal. You just assert it’s irrelevant.
See, theism really does answer ethical questions. Not well, and not in detail. But at least that domain is trespassed upon. Atheism does not. That’s why we have secular moral philosophy. Social Darwinism is a part of that, and that’s something worthy of scorn and criticism. But that doesn’t mean it makes sense to throw out all secular humanist philosophy with it. Which is what your doing.
Were you an American football player? I hear they take quite severe blows to the head. (Yes, that was a little insult thrown in at the end of an otherwise okay comment. Yes, I do this to see if you’ll take up the distraction instead of the content. No, you dont always.)

Wow! That was one of the most ADHD comments ever! I was expecting, “Squirrel!” in there somewhere.You said:

We haven’t pretended to be someone important and secretive. John even uses his real name. You’re the one invoking curiosity and then complaining that we talk about it.

Response:

Secretive, yes. You fabricated “important.” But then you do a lot of fabricating. If you think that I’m important as a result of my truthful, and yes, a bit understated, résumé, then okay.

I have no idea whether John uses his real name. I assume that you don’t. I assume further that Ark doesn’t. John, though, apparently hasn’t yet figured it out.

So, bottom line: I tell as much about myself as, if not more than, you three except possibly John, who tells too much about himself.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

To be honest, though, laughing at your sense of self worth is a lot more fun than reading your repeated claim about atheism. I’ve read your claim. Atheism offers no prohibitions. I get it. It’s not a problem. Art doesn’t offer prohibition either. But you think too much of yourself to actually engage with the rebuttal. You just assert it’s irrelevant.

Response:

Weak snark. You have no way to assess my sense of self-worth. You fabricated that as well. This is interesting coming from someone of a thought tendency that alleges that we Christians have fabricated things. I’ve found that to be true. The greatest fabricators are generally the atheists. They are the ones with their Gaia’s and their living rocks and crystals, and their Zlorks… and, of course, their silly allalltian attempts at mind-reading.

Why do you constantly bring up things that have already been batted down? I already explained to you the irrelevancy of an interest in the arts. I then explained to you the relevancy of atheism to one’s worldview and to one’s interactions with others.

Atheism houses not only the meek, mild-mannered atheism you say you espouse, but also the aggressive, expansionist, almost jihadist atheism of Marx-Lenin that you’ve branded “anti-theism,” but that also lives under the umbrella of atheism. That you profess not to belong to that branch of atheism, doesn’t change the fact that it exists, and that it was a major component in the murders of tens of millions in the last century alone.

The more you talk about it, the more you make atheism sound, and act, and smell, and feel like: Islam. Islam has people who are meek, mild-mannered and willing to live and let live too. They get upset, too, at the suggestion that there might be something in Islam itself that is a component in murder and mayhem. And Islam has also many hundreds of thousands who think it’s just okay to cut off the heads of babies, or crucify old men and women, or bury or burn them alive. Just like atheism. Thanks for this post! I think you might have just added an important chapter to the book and some good conceptual material to explore!

I once asked an agnostic friend of mine why he didn;t call himself an atheist. His reply: “Atheism is jsut another religion.” I never really understood the reply until just now. The zeal with which you struggle and strain and twist your logic into convoluted knots, all to protect your conscience, as well as your urge to avoid your responsibilities, and your thought tendenciy’s responsibilities, is psitively religious. It’s the same with Zande and Ark, up to using even religious language. Ark uses “the character” all the time, like a talisman, or like a Christian might cross himself. Zande and his pseudo-iconography in the form of his silly graphical “memes.”

Hmmmmm… I think this might be fertile ground as well. Atheism as religion. It certainly was for Marx, Lenin, Stalin, et al. My Russian professor of some years ago told of how the Soviets even came up with a Trinity: Mark-Lenin-Engels! They had, he said, simply replaced God with their own “secular moral philosophy” that amounted — except for an avowed belief in God (a lacuna they eventually filled with Stalin) — to religion.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

See, theism really does answer ethical questions. Not well, and not in detail. But at least that domain is trespassed upon. Atheism does not. That’s why we have secular moral philosophy. Social Darwinism is a part of that, and that’s something worthy of scorn and criticism. But that doesn’t mean it makes sense to throw out all secular humanist philosophy with it. Which is what your doing.

Response:

Atheism answers ethical questions as well. By not pronouncing on them. It’s the coward’s way out. It’s the way to say, “I’m okay, you’re okay,” when, sadly, you’re not. But you get to avoid causing someone else consternation, stroking your conflict-avoidance neurosis, and you get to be all in high dudgeon if someone confronts you for your lack of courage, or for being, as you are, morally unmoored.

For theism, it’s not a trespass, though…it’s a core function. Thank you for the phrase: “secular moral philosophy!” A perfectly valid “secular moral philosophy” would be: “Kill everyone I encounter,” and no other “secular moral philosophy” has an answer for that, except to say, “I don’t like it,” to which the other would reply, “Too bad,” and continue to kill. And that would be okay.

Not in Christianity, though.

– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –

You said:

Were you an American football player? I hear they take quite severe blows to the head. (Yes, that was a little insult thrown in at the end of an otherwise okay comment. Yes, I do this to see if you’ll take up the distraction instead of the content. No, you dont always.)

Response:

Yes, it was an insult. What you might not understand is that I’m impossible to insult. Oh, you can try, but I don’t care. Why would I care in the slightest about your opinion of me? I hope you have the same feeling toward any insults I might offer. I always get a chuckle out of the people who get all in a lather at someone insulting them online. Why on earth do they care? Even one tiny jot!

No, I was not an American football player.

Were you an atheist? I hear they aren’t bright enough to play American football. 🙂

You confuse the idea of word-use with explanation. They are not the same. You have said nothing to explain why an appreciation of art is less important than atheism.
I have not accused Christians of fabricating things.
Given that you have claimed, in another thread, you have special access to knowledge, and given that assessing someone’s tone is exceptionally easy for most people, let alone people who have studied English literature and language at college-level, so I could quite easily defend my assessment of your elevated level of self worth, or at least your lack of humility (which is how this debate began). You defend yourself with ‘can’t see the forest for all the trees’ reasoning.
Can I scorn all Christianity with the Lord’s liberation army, or the anti-balaka movement in Central African Republic? So far, you claimed that I cannot because they’re not real Christians. This is the Western-consensus bollocks definition of Christianity you use (this rejecting any Christians up until about 150 years ago), but don’t extend to a definition of Islam. You think the “consensus” on Christianity is what you think Christianity is, you think Islam is limited to your idea of Islam, and you think atheism can be scorned by the behaviour of distinct individuals whose behaviour is not well explained by atheism itself. Your conjecture really fails on the marketplace of ideas.
I am neither struggling nor straining to protect my conscience. I know Hitler was a bad person, and I understand there is no meaningful link between his philosophy and mine., regarding the specific horrors he orchestrated. It’s your demand that atheism be construed as a meaningful link between me and the tyrants that is tortured rhetoric.
I am not morally unmoored and I’ve never met an atheist who is morally unmoored. And I see no evidence that theism offers a good mooring. (As I have argued, all the moral mooring that anyone spends anytime congratulating religion for is spawned from humanism.) But as you have an entirely uninformed concept of secular moral philosophy (and religious morality, so far as I can tell) you’re blind to all that.

Where do you get the idea that I didn’t explain the arts thing? I told you — and you seemed to agree — that an interest in the arts is unlinked to moral prescriptions. I further told you, and you seemed to agree, that religions do offer moral prescriptions. That that is where you properly go to find moral prescriptions.

Where you mess up, and I thank you for this as well: the only possible good or ,i>decent humanism (after all, humanism is a continuum as well!) comes after belief in God; after belief in a Higher Authority dictating that we behave properly toward one another. Absent that belief in a Higher Authority, humanism is, to borrow my own phrase, morally unmoored. Any “common decency” component in humanism, absent a Higher Authority, is nothing more than a passing phase, waiting to be supplanted by whatever the next thing is.

You accuse me of using my own definitions of Christianity. But you’re just as guilty of using your own definition for humanism. Faith in a higher ideal is possible only with faith in a Higher Authority. Humanists pretend that the higher ideal stems from Man’s desire for constant self-improvement (I believe in that, by the way), but the problem is the definition of “self-improvement,” which, absent a Highest Authority, is as elastic as the secularist needs it to be, in order to conform to his basest ambitions. The secular humanist Soviets thought they were well on the way to “creating” the perfect man, the “New Soviet Man,” who would bring about the Socialist Utopia.

Religion offers moral prescriptions. Art does not offer moral prescriptions. We agree here. Atheism–and wait, you’ll like this–does not offer moral prescriptions. You have dome nothing to explain the bit where atheism offers moral prescriptions, and is therefore not like art.
The fact that you think humanism must pretend to have some authority speaks to how facile your concept of ethics is. You think goodness has to be dictated and imposed to be real.
You get more facile, again, pretending the Soviets can be considered Humanist. Look up a definition of Humanism and see if you can reasonably justify describing the Soviet movement as a Humanist movement.

It was an atheism that they saw as essential to (their view of) progress in the world, and they were ready and willing to impose that belief system on their countrymen; by force if necessary.

I’ve also called it “militant atheism,” and “aggressive atheism.” Those are useful and accurate terms as well. These are the “atheisms” that most resemble Islam in today’s world, and especially in recent, very, very sad, history.

You called all that “anti-theism,” and I like that term as well. They all fit side-by-side and quite comfortably within the larger umbrella term: “atheism.”

Or, rather… if I had to make a Venn diagram to illustrate it, I might show an “Evangelical Atheism” circle fully enclosed within a larger “Anti-theism” circle, itself fully enclosed within a larger “Atheism” circle. Working hypothesis at this point. I might also add a “Secular Materialism” circle (I think that’s what you called it) also within the largest “Atheism” circle. Not sure whether that one would overlap any of the other circles…

Humanists pretend that their higher ideal stems from Man’s desire for constant self-improvement (I believe in that, by the way), but the problem is the definition of “self-improvement,” which, absent a Highest Authority, is as elastic as the secularist needs it to be, in order to conform to his basest ambitions.

This strikes me as self-evident. The Soviets — heck the Nazis! — thought they were doing the right thing. They were all unmoored from any rules laid down by a Higher Authority. And, as might be expected in such circumstances, their idea of “the right thing” didn’t turn out so well.

Praetorius, according to your “hypothesis,” we should see corresponding evidence of violent moral debauchery related to these world leaders and their periods in power.

Please provide data to support your “hypothesis.” In particular, you might want to start with the Israeli’s: David Ben-Gurion (first Prime Minister of Israel 1948-1954), and Golda Meir (Prime Minister Israel 1969-1974).

Sigh — I’ll explain again. Apparently the feeble-minded Zande was unable to assimilate the previous explanation: the above-listed people found themselves atop structures founded by others. One reason Stalin, Hitler, et al were able to kill so many people was that they were able to manipulateand re-make the power structures to reflect their own characters, and to permit their depredations.

In other words, one can conclude also — directly from Zande’s list above! — that whenever atheists mold the power structures of a country explicitlyusing aggressive, evangelical atheism (like Soviet atheism) as a foundational concept, you almost guarantee atrocities and crimes against humanity.

Zande: your list indicts atheism more strongly than ever, as an important component in the murder of millions.

the above-listed people found themselves atop structures founded by others.

Really? And what structure was beneath David Ben-Gurion, the first PM of Israel? By your insane (literally insane) hypothesis, Israel should have instantly been an amoral, tyrannical, aggressive player… being shaped, as it was, by an atheist leader.

The cure for the atheism disease is not just theism by itself, but Christianity — specifically Christ Himself.

Christianity represents such a radical departure — as an entire doctrine and belief system — that it is the only system that is not corruptible by itself.

Otherwise, put: the only way to use Christianity as an excuse to do evil is to corrupt oneself — to misstate, misuse, misunderstand, misinterpret (yes, I’m saying my interpretation is correct — so are you) Christianity so thoroughly that while he may say he is acting as a Christian, he is not.

This is not a “No True Scotsman” thing, because such tortured — and false, incorrect, inaccurate… wrong — rationales are possible. They serve to make the dispassionate observer state, quite accurately, that the person is not what he says he is. While Christianity itself stands unblemished by the foolishness of those who would abuse it.

Shaquille O’Neal can call himself short all he wants, but we all look at him and say, correctly, that he is not what he says he is. The reason for his conclusion matters little. As do the convoluted contortions he might use to support his contention. He is not, though, short.

The acceptance of such “Shaquille O’Neal is short because he says he is” nonsense is the entire reason for the success of the “Gay Marriage,” and the current and growing “Transgender” scams.

Okay, Zande… you just keep on imagining that the guy who made sure the adulteress wouldn’t be stoned was also in favor of stoning kids if they got out of line.

You’re as Christianity-illiterate as anyone I’ve ever interacted with. If it weren’t so sad, it’d be kind of fun to read your deluded, whack-a-doodle “thinking,” if such it can be called.

What your limited intellect can’t fathom is that Jesus came not to remove the responsibility of The Law, but to re-establish, re-state, and allow us to re-claim it in light of His presence, which fulfilled all the prophecies. What Jesus, the maker of Mosaic Law, said about Mosaic Law, obviously, superseded what was then known of Mosaic Law. It was, however, also Mosaic Law, and we are bound to obey it.

The term “Mosaic Law” is just another term for “God’s Law” or “The Word of God.”

I know all that is too far above you, Zande, so let’s try this. When the Constitution of the United States was amended, it didn’t cease to be the law of the land, and it was still the Constitution. The several states and the people were still bound by its constraints. It was simply that the makers of the Constitution — the people — had changed it in light of passing time and circumstances.

Since Jesus, as part of the Triune nature of God, created Mosaic Law, He certainly could do with it what He wanted, whenever He wanted. When He spoke, He did so with the full authority of the Creator of the universe backing His words. And they became The Law.

It’s all about Bible literacy:
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17).

Although some mistakenly think that “fulfill” in this passage means to complete and therefore abolish, what Jesus said afterwards shows this could not be the case. Continuing, Jesus said: “For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (verses 18-19).

You not making a point is pretty tiresome, too. You mistake the fact you have asserted I’m wrong with having explained that I’m wrong, then keep referring back to the time you asserted it. Instead of attempting a ridiculing tone, why don’t you actually support your point.
Why should parents ignore the bit about stoning children? Why doesn’t ignoring that, and other imperatives to stone gays and adulterers, mean also ignoring Jesus’ in the passage I quoted?
Can you put content to your assertions?

Hmm john.
At the risk of exposing foolishness, (which isn’t always a bad thing,) some may wonder WHY u would ask such a question, since you have previously gone on record saying

a. You do not believe in a Creator
b. The Creator, if He was, is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
c. That Moses never lived
d. That there was no Exodus
e. Making the ‘law of Moses’ an incidental
f. And that oh, if Christ lived………………nevermind

So you could understand why some would appear hesitant to answer such a question coming from you. And yes, there are answers which when framed in the context of a perfect God, and within the parameters of ‘rightly dividing the word of truth………….’ are clear as a bell.

I will say this, John. A long time ago ColourStorm derided me (over on InsanityBytes blog) for giving implicit support to hateful bigots (you and Ark). I asked for a quote to support that and he dodged it and I asked and he (ColourStorm, are you male? I don’t know why I’ve assumed you are) dodged and this went on for over a week and I wrote a post called something like “On politeness and accusations” and it went on and then suddenly he sprang up with a quote, from you, buried deep in a comments thread somewhere else, to paint you as a bigot.
(The quote was about you describing creationists as a retardation of our species.)
So it is perfectly possible he is (sitting on)/(desperately looking for) a Biblical quote. He won’t release that quote to you until he (finds it)/(decides to change tact to see if it bears fruit).

That said, you have presented a quote to show Jesus said he wouldn’t not change the old law and nothing is being offered in return. So, there’s that.

ColourStorm, I don’t want you to take this comment to mean you’re not welcome here, because you are, but what was your intention in popping into the thread just to say you won’t answer JZ’s question and can understand why xPrae won’t either? It seems you just wanted to tease John.
How’s this: if John admitted that God and Jesus have perfect authority and command over the reality described in the Bible, regardless of whether such a “reality” is actually real, would you then entertain answering John’s question, in the explicit context of understanding the claims of the Bible on this issue (and not necessarily what it says about reality itself)?

That was complex and I’m not sure I articulated myself properly, so can you first answer this question: are you reasonably sure you understood what I just wrote? And then, perhaps, whether you would answer John’s question if he made the above concession.

I think your stance is currently showing some signs of hypocrisy, too.

I think John’s point is pretty clear and that your response is a dodge.
In your interpretation of the Bible, how do you get around Mosaic law? Please offer chapter and verse to support your reasoning. You can take this relativists approach, where different laws apply to different people, I have no objection to that, so long as you can defend it. But, be aware, that I will use it against you if you claim the moral argument for God’s existence (which supposes absolute morality). But I’d also want chapter and verse about where the clear delineation is between rules that apply to one group and other rules that apply to others.

If you cannot offer a defence, you are, in fact, either inventing morality as you go along and mistakenly defending it as Biblical, or are following cultural norms, regardless of the actual content of the Bible. And that’s where my charge of hypocrisy comes in.

John and I hold little to no reverence for the Bible. Part of the reason is that we are not convinced of the foundational claim of the supernatural. But, even as a work of man, I think I speak for John as well when I say we also hold little reverence for the Bible because it purports to offer a moral message and fundamentally fails around questions like this one. How do you Biblically justify discarding Mosaic law?

Don’t make the same mistake as jz in assuming allalt. ‘Discarding Mosaic law?’ where did I say say that?

But further, you are missing something of far more worth, which time and interest escapes me for many reasons.

WHY was the law given in the first place? Was not Abraham a just man WITHOUT law????????????
Why was the law NOT given to ADAM? And WHEN would the ceremonial, sacrificial, and moral aspects have their fruition? These are more profitable for you to entertain, which when answers have been exhausted, you would be in a better frame to understand the sermon on the mount, and of course the book of Galatians for example.

There is no fear of telling you the truth, I am simply well aware of the sideshow.

You might want to help me out with some of the answers to some of those questions.
(1) Are you not discarding Mosaic Law? (Because that would be interesting.)
(2) Who was Mosaic law given to?
(3) Why is this population-dependent law not relativism? (Because I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what it is.)
(4) Was Abraham a man without law? (I think not.)
(5) Why was the law not given to Adam? (I think the answer is because the story was written across many generations by many different authors and then later edited into a semi-coherent narrative. I can’t find or invent any good reason God would reveal and hide laws so selectively.)
(6) How can you reliably or Biblically distinguish between ceremonial, sacrificial and moral law? (Preference. Post facto excuses. Make it up. These aren’t reliable, but they are options and it appears it is what scholars actually do. I’d love to find a Biblical distinction.)

Also, just to correct your criminal analogy, this is more like the defence trying to make sure it understands the accusation the prosecution is actually making. It looks a bit more like this:
Defence: Why is it you think what my client did is a crime?
Prosecution: Why would I tell you? If you don’t think your client did it, why should I tell you what the law surrounding this subject is?
Defence: Uh, it’s called ‘discovery’. Understanding each other’s position is necessary to understanding who has the most defensible claim.
Prosecution: Don’t care. I don’t think you’ll accept my claim, so I’m not sharing it with you. Go to Hell.

And imperfect analogy, I’ll admit. But better than your one. I can’t make your analogy map onto this discussion at all.

I know this wasn’t aimed at me, but I still don’t understand it.
The question I assume you are referring to is when Jesus claimed to overthrow or else supersede the Mosaic law. Regardless of whether John considers this a question about literature or fact, the question is fine. John hasn’t even got to the stage of arguing the Bible is literature and not fact (in this thread).
The conversation is one where xPrae thinks morality is defined in this book, regardless of whether it is mere literature or actual fact, and John wants to know why xPrae decided to not obey the Mosaic law.
I’ve had conversations like this about Game of Thrones and about X-Men. The reality of the context doesn’t matter.
So, why would you legitimise ignoring a question that is important to both your faith and xPrae’s by pointing out that it came from someone who doesn’t follow your faith? How is that intellectually honest?

Thank you for the conversation you have provided on this post. You’ve inspired a new post about the inferiority of Christian ethics compared to atheism’s complete lack of an answer…
We’ll call it part 5 of how I defeated you so soundly.

Lol! Have fun! I hear you picking up your ball and getting ready to go home to mommy.

You just keep on thinking that the ethics in a doctrine whose primary commandment is for all people “to love their neighbor as themselves,” are inferior to those of a belief system that was a necessary component in the murder of more than 100 million people.

If you thought logic couldn’t be tortured anymore, it sounds as though your 5th installment will somehow manage it.

If I choose to define you as ‘not a Jain’, I could make the same ignorant and embarrassing rant you just did. Why don’t you, not a Jain, rape women and kill black people? From the perspective of being not a Jain, it is all permitted to you. Nothing stopping you at all. Hitler want a Jain, and neither was Mao. Your type, the not a Jains, are responsible for every bloodbath in history. Every violent crime, ever, was perpetrated by your beloved not a Jains.

That’s simple. (1) As a Christian, I am absolutely forbidden to do those things, (2) as a Christian, I love other people, so would not abuse them, (3) as a human, I recognize the value of The Golden Rule across all levels of life and reasoning (Physical, Metaphysical, Moral, Ethical, Philosophical), (4) I have empathy (a constraint that atheists are not required to have.) (5) As a Christian, I recognize the value of #2 across all levels of life and reasoning, and have assimilated that belief at all levels of my thinking and feeling.

As a Christian, none of the abuses you listed are permitted to me. I’ve spent quite a few words on explaining that to you. You agreed when you conceded that atheism represents a lack of prohibition against atrocities and abuses.

I feel really bad when other people hurt, and so am not tempted to abuse anyone else in any way whatsoever. You’re free of such limits.

I’m figuring that in rejecting the Christian belief system, as you have, you’re also free of such inconvenient feelings as empathy and actual compassion — you know: compassion that doesn’t wind up with someone else’s being dead?(1) Real compassion, not the fake compassion of the left, who are interested only in validating their depredations using the language of Christians.

Interesting point that: The American left — riddled with atheists, by the way — is constantly trying to sell their agenda using the language of Christianity. Compassion, love, freedom, liberation, brotherhood, equality, justice, fairness…these are all Christian values. There’s no imperative or any of these anywhere in atheism — or in any of its subsets like Evangelical Atheism, Anti-theism, Secular Materialism, or Rational Materialism, or any other human-made fabrication.

Best,

— x

Notes:
– * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * – * –
(1) Remember: you approve of killing the depressed person who walks into the “doctor’s” office and convinces him and a colleague that he has no reason to continue to live. As I’ve said many times: whenever the left adopts a position on a policy, someone ends up dead. Maybe I should re-formulate that: “whenever the left, or atheists, adopts a position on a policy, someone ends up dead.”

I already covered these fake arguments in the previous several posts. Those responses were probably over your head, Zande.

I even covered it many times previously, in other posts as well! In response to Zande! He apparently has a full library of these snippets that all come from the “I’m Too Lazy to Think for Myself” collection from http://www.worldatheism.com.

Zande seems to think that saying the long-debunked over and over and over and over and over again will somehow magically make it true. His resemblance to the sheep who fall in line with the disseminators of a Big Lie — any Big Lie — is striking.

Quick summary: Anyone who thinks Hitler and Mussolini were Christians is either (1) not contributing honestly, or (2) crashingly stupid, or (3) insane, or (4) massively, colossally ignorant, or (5) someone listening to hyper-defensive atheists, or finally, (6) some combination of all the others.

“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow my self to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows . For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.” -Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922

Let me know when you can provide any proof that Hitler was not a Christian.

Again? Why would I have to provide proof again? I already provided proof in this very thread and in the previous. However, you indicated that, like Ark, you don’t read what I write, so I don’t feel honor bound to provide it again.

Hitler loathed Christianity.

Nice quote from 1922 by Hitler, Zande. Kind of funny that you think that Hitler would undergo no changes from 1922 until he took power more than a decade later.

Then, from your very own source, we find the following also:

The religious views of Adolf Hitler are a matter of interest and debate. According to Alan Bullock, Hitler was a rationalist and a materialist “who believed neither in God nor in conscience.” Nonetheless, Hitler opportunistically employed the language of ‘divine providence’ in defence of his own myth.

You really are a moron, Zande. Even when you find a “source,” you’re too lazy to vet it sufficiently to find out whether it’s even one that supports your point of view.

“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” -Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on 24 Oct. 1933

I can keep posting quotes by Hitler affirming he was a Christian, and anti-atheist.

Like I said, if at any time you wish to provide some contrary evidence, evidence where Hitler says, for example, he does not believe in the Christian god, then at that time i’ll be happy to review it.

Because I’ve explained it over and over and over and over and over again to the likes of Zande, a half-wit who just keeps coming back and saying, “Hitler was a Christian, Hitler was a Christian…” again and again and again, like a brain-dead parrot. First: Hitler wasn’t. You’re a big boy, go do some research of your own. Second: even if he had been, it means nothing. In this very thread, from Zande’s own source, we found this:

The religious views of Adolf Hitler are a matter of interest and debate. According to Alan Bullock, Hitler was a rationalist and a materialist “who believed neither in God nor in conscience.” Nonetheless, Hitler opportunistically employed the language of ‘divine providence’ in defence of his own myth.

Let’s pretend that Hitler, the murderer of millions, was a Christian. Zande’s premise is: because, so Zande says, Hitler was a Christian, that indicts Christianity.

By his, and apparently your, ‘logic,” the laws against murder cause murder because even though they plainly prohibit murder, still murderers commit murder.

As an atheist, you actually can make that leap, because without any Ultimate Authority, you can, and do (remember: Zande thinks Hitler was a Christian!) make any leaps of faith you want.

Heck, you’re about to pen a piece, or so you say, that suggests that the ethics of a belief system that commands us to love everyone in the world are inferior to those of a belief system that was, and continues to be, instrumental in the murder, impoverishment, dislocation and destitution of tens of millions of people and their families.

By the way, I’ve already figured out the tack you’ll take, and this very thread debunks it completely in one line. Here’s the line:

Oops, you’ve accidentally signed into a different account with an x at the end of your name. That’s why your comment didn’t go straight through.
I’ve already penned the piece, but I only publish on Wednesdays now. So, it comes out at the end of April. Don’t worry, it’s linked to you so you can see it when it arrives.
I don’t indict Christianity with the actions of tyrannical murderous Christians, I don’t really mention them. Zande points them out to show how using the exact same ‘logical’ structure you’re using is something you are actually very sceptical of. The point is that you don’t believe the very logical structure you are using. Playing ‘hide the ball’ with that double standard is contorted and ridiculous pseudo-intellectual sophistry. This accusation that we are indicting all of Christianity is a juvenile third grade attempt at distraction.

Also, claiming that Christianity has no role in the Holocaust is pure sophistry, tortured rhetoric and patently ignorant of the facts.

Grouping content-free atheism with content-laden ideologies is also sophistry and language games.

All horror and all violence in the world, all of it, is cause by people who are not Jains. The Inquisitors were not Jains. Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Mussolini etc were all not Jains. The Lord’s Liberation Army has, among its ranks, not one Jain. The child-abusing priests are not Jains.
The horror and tyranny and death and pain and suffering of the modern world is caused, solely, but a lack of Jainism. Only Jainism has the Higher Authority which can offer prohibitions and limits to cruelty. All non-Jains are free to discard Jainism and its ethics, which is precisely why they are cruel.

I was just explaining why his comment went into moderation.
I’m sure he has perfectly good reason for having another account. Maybe a colleague left theirs signed in. Maybe his blog has become too popular, so he’s having to abandon it and start again. Perhaps he forgot the password, so started up a new account to continue this engaging conversation.
Having an multiple-digital-personality-disorder is only one of a handful of explanations.

You put a typo at the end of your automatically filled Username?
You have to type your name in every time you comment?
Sorry, xPrae, but I gave you a variety of perfectly believable options and you chose to go with a story of you inputting a typological error in a field that is automatically updated by the computer.
Also, “all the conspiracy theories you guys…”? What conspiracy theory do you feel I brought back up?
This is what I mean when I say you’re obsessed with the distractions. And excuse to not engage.

One of pages on the Praetori blog does actually state there are a few authors. xPrae, bPrae, aPrae. I’ve only seen xPrae post or comment. But that means I barely thought it a silly comment to suggest that he’s accidentally used another account.
Instead, xPrae has chosen to claim that he successfully logged on with a typo in his username. Now, I don’t know what that means. And I’m not about to go into adductive reasoning and claim that the only explanation I can think of is that he’s got multiple accounts that he uses to make himself seem important.
However, I will note that having several accounts going through the same IP address and two accounts that claim to have the same person at the other side of the screen does demonstrate that the accounts and the people on the other side do not line up.
But, instead of just entertaining the idea that he’s set up accounts to exaggerate his own popularity, it’s also not impossible that xPrae is actually an early model of Google’s Deep Learning algorithm.

Also, I was the one who cited the Wikipedia page. I don’t know why he keep blaming you. Probably too many people for him to keep track of. But he’s also selectively taken a few sentences out of a Wikipedia page he rejected as a source, that Wikipedia says needs improvement, and the discussion itself is about the uncertainty regarding Hitler’s religion. So, not only is the source shit, but he’s selectively presenting it. Not only that, but early we discussed that the use of sources is not to duel in terms of opinions, but data and methods. And that is not the content of the quote he’s sharing. It’s a fractal error and might explain why he hates using sources; he doesn’t know how to.

Well, maybe there is a personality in there, somewhere, that does like engaging “facts” in their discourse? Who knows? The Praetorius’s we’ve met so far are all rather odd, but certainly a psychiatrists’ dream 😉

“I’m a tall-ish white dude (6’4″) former professional athlete, turned television/radio personality/pitchman/announcer/professional “voice.” I’m an author. I’ve written eleven books on a variety of topics. Working on a twelfth…”

Now, it’s time to change things up a bit. I have a concession/confession to make myself.

I’m not who I seem to be in these posts. Oh, I’m still the same dude (same description as before), it’s just that I’ve been playing a character

As you probably should have cottoned to long ago, and as I mentioned more than several times at my own blog, I disapprove strongly of the gratuitous insult, of bad or coarse language, and of questioning the integrity, the honesty or the sanity of others.

I was hoping that I could show by example that that is the best policy, and that maybe Allallt would adopt some standards, but I did not succeed in that effort.

So, please accept my apologies for all the “stupid” this and the “idiot” that. I didn’t mean them. Needless to say, no one here is stupid, or an idiot; they’re simply people who disagree with me.

I hinted at this a bit earlier when I said that I no longer felt constrained by my own standards, and I’d hoped that Allallt would take the hint, and think about raising the level of discourse at his otherwise not-too-bad blog.

So, at this point, I’m going back to where I’m more comfortable; in the realm of the non-combative back-and-forth.

You two are still both wrong, and I think I’ve pretty well demonstrated it. 🙂

Especially with the Alan Bullock quote, that pretty much should put the Hitler distraction to bed.

Here’s a snippet from Wikipedia (again, not my preferred “go to” for information anyway) about Bullock:

In 1952, Bullock published Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, the first comprehensive biography of Adolf Hitler, which he based on the transcripts of the Nuremberg Trials. This book dominated Hitler scholarship for many years. The book characterised Hitler as an opportunistic machtpolitiker (“power politician”). In Bullock’s opinion, Hitler was a “mountebank”, an opportunistic adventurer devoid of principles, beliefs or scruples whose actions throughout his career were motivated only by a lust for power. Bullock’s views led in the 1950s to a debate with Hugh Trevor-Roper who argued that Hitler did possess beliefs, albeit repulsive ones, and that his actions were motivated by them. Bullock’s Guardian obituary commented that “Bullock’s famous maxim ‘Hitler was jobbed into power by backstairs intrigue’ has stood the test of time.”[4]

When reviewing Hitler: A Study in Tyranny in The Times in 1991, John Campbell wrote “Although written so soon after the end of the war and despite a steady flow of fresh evidence and reinterpretation, it has not been surpassed in nearly 40 years: an astonishing achievement.

Later, Bullock to some extent changed his mind about Hitler. His later works show the dictator as much more of an ideologue, who pursued the ideas expressed in Mein Kampf (and elsewhere) despite their consequences. This has become a widely accepted view of Hitler, particularly in relation to the Holocaust.

So, I guess some consider Bullock to be credible. I admit, I don’t know enough about his work to conclude any which way. The real danger of relying on sources made manifest!

So, please accept my apologies for all the “stupid” this and the “idiot” that. I didn’t mean them. Needless to say, no one here is stupid, or an idiot; they’re simply people who disagree with me.

Ahahaha! You’ve lost your mind! Do remember, Praetorius (or whoever it is we’re talking to here, at this moment), that Allalt has linked back to your blog where you behave even worse than you have here.

I didn’t blame Jainism at any point. I blamed the lack of Jainism. The Nazis are quite conspicuous in their lack of Jainism. The Kims and Mao are also devoid of Jainism. So is Hitler.
The lack of Jainism is a problem, because Jainism offers a prohibition to violence.

That said, I noticed you’d taken on a different tact here from on your own blog. Your apology isn’t needed, but thank you for it. I think you have misinterpreted the insults JZ and I used. I, for one, took a very long time to throw out an insult and I didn’t use it in place of an argument. You have been offering condescension in the place of arguments.

Hardly. I offered snark in an unsuccessful attempt to get you to put in place some standards here.

As the master of the blog, you are responsible for all its content.

The very first comment in your comments section is:

Praetorius has to rank as one of the most baffling, self-idolising bloggers i have ever encountered… Possibly also suffering from a severe and worrying multiple personality disorder.

It might be from Zande, but it’s your responsibility. The tone of your blog is entirely under your control.

That you personally abstained from insults means nothing. I have no idea, for example, that you and Zande are not just the same person, and that you use the Zande ID as a foil to make you seem high-minded and serious, while he plays the barroom brawler.

After all, it’s easy to fake an IP address from anywhere in the world.

A point for you here. I agree with you. If the Nazis had all been Jainists, the world likely would have been better off.

The only thing better than that, would be if they had been good Christians. I’m not aware of anything in Jainism suggesting that each person should love every other person, and show him the way to eternal salvation.

I could be wrong though. I don’t know Jainism well enough to know whether it’s in there. However, all the evidence ( 🙂 )suggests that it’s simply probably true that the world would be better off if the Nazi leadership had al been Jainists. Or Hindus. Or Buddhists. Or Taoists.

But certainly not the bloodthirsty atheists they were! So, one point to you.

There’s nothing absurd about it. You’re making a claim, so back yourself up.
You want to tell me people are atheists. It’s called the burden of proof. (Unfortunate name, really.)
I thought someone who offered “Unusually Insightful and Literate Commentary on the World Around Us” would know that.

Because I’ve explained it over and over and over and over and over again to the likes of Zande, a half-wit who just keeps coming back and saying, “Hitler was a Christian, Hitler was a Christian…” again and again and again, like a brain-dead parrot. First: Hitler wasn’t.

You don’t get it, John. xPrae is right because he says so. You are wrong because he says so. You are welcome to present evidence contrary to xPrae, but xPrae is the arbiter of what evidence counts and what evidence does not, and your evidence does not.
xPrae is the God of this thread, the Ultimate arbiter of Truth. It’s not, as it appears, ignorant assertions and uninformed opinions. When xPrae speaks reality itself conforms. FACT.

The religious views of Adolf Hitler are a matter of interest and debate. According to Alan Bullock, Hitler was a rationalist and a materialist “who believed neither in God nor in conscience.” Nonetheless, Hitler opportunistically employed the language of ‘divine providence’ in defence of his own myth.

I’ll write this slowly too. If Hitler was “opportunistically employed the language of ‘divine providence’ in defence of his own myth,” he wasn’t then going to run around denying that he was a Christian, was he?

That’s THREE TIMES having addressed it directly… with as much evidence as anyone can ever have as to another person’s religious beliefs, and you then pretend that I haven’t addressed it at all.

I noted that in the next post, Allallt suggested that I had not produced any evidence, when I had used Zande’s own source, and twice already addressed your irrelevant Hitler tangent directly. With a direct quote!

We’ve discussed this, xPrae. I don’t care that you found a source that has concluded Hitler was a materialist. I care for a source that has the data. John has offered some actual data: actual extracts from things Hitler has said and written. Can you offer something at least equivalent?
I think this might be why you hate source duelling; you think the conclusions “experts” make are the bit you’re meant to source, but the data is a lot more reliable. You haven’t offered that.
You say Hitler wasn’t going to admit he was an atheist, if it were true. Fine. But that is an excuse for why you don’t have evidence, that is not evidence. How do you know that he was an atheist? You are aware that ‘not a Christian’ and ‘atheist’ are not synonyms, aren’t you?

For someone who claims to offer “Unusually Insightful and Literate Commentary on the World Around Us” you don’t half fall short of critical thinking.
If you wanted to prove I was atheist it would be remarkably easy. I have a blog about it. If you wanted to argue I was a Christian, all you would have to do is argue that I’d never admit I was a Christian in a world so hostile to Christianity… but that’s not evidence, is it? Or would that count as evidence to you? Are you now convinced I am a Christian pretending to be an atheist for my personal safety?

I never cited a source, Praetorius. I’ve been ignoring your continued reference to this phantom “source” because, quite frankly, I consider you quite insane.

“In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison … “As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.” (Hitler, April 12, 1922)

So, once again, when you produce some “evidence” that show Hitler renounce his Christian faith, I’ll be happy to review it.

No need. Bullock plainly says that all indications are that Hitler pretended to be a Christian. Such a person — pretending to be a Christian — would not, of course, renounce the very beliefs he was pretending to have.

You know, supporting evidence like this demonstrating how fervent Hitler’s belief in Christianity was:

“Today Christians … stand at the head of [this country]… I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit … We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press – in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past … (few) years.”
– Adolf Hitler, quoted in: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872

What’s the actual evidence?
It seems to be based in Bullock’s opinion. And his opinionated conclusion is that Hitler had no beliefs. That doesn’t seem reasonable. But the actual line of argument seems to be Bullock claiming ‘I don’t believe you can be that horrible and have beliefs’. I might be wrong, but that’s teh best you’ve offered. Why would I take that seriously?
On top of that, arguing that’s he’s not a Christian doesn’t get you to atheism. So where’s your argument for that?

Here are just some evidences that prove Hitler riled against atheists and atheism.

“We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”
– Adolf Hitler, Speech in Berlin, October 24, 1933

“The fact that the Curia is now making its peace with Fascism shows that the Vatican trusts the new political realities far more than did the former liberal democracy with which it could not come to terms. …The fact that the Catholic Church has come to an agreement with Fascist Italy …proves beyond doubt that the Fascist world of ideas is closer to Christianity than those of Jewish liberalism or even atheistic Marxism…”
– Adolf Hitler in an article in the Völkischer Beobachter, February 29, 1929, on the new Lateran Treaty between Mussolini’s fascist government and the Vatican

“And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests. But at that time Christ was nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews; whereas our modern Christians enter into party politics and when elections are being held they debase themselves to beg for Jewish votes. They even enter into political intrigues with the atheistic Jewish parties against the interests of their own Christian nation.”
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 11

“By its decision to carry out the political and moral cleansing of our public life, the Government is creating and securing the conditions for a really deep and inner religious life. The advantages for the individual which may be derived from compromises with atheistic organizations do not compare in any way with the consequences which are visible in the destruction of our common religious and ethical values. The national Government sees in both Christian denominations the most important factor for the maintenance of our society. …”
– Adolf Hitler, speech before the Reichstag, March 23, 1933, just before the Enabling Act is passed.

Here is a The New York Times Story: “Atheist Hall Converted.”

“In Freethinkers Hall, which before the Nazi resurgence was the national headquarters of the German Freethinkers League, the Berlin Protestant church authorities have opened a bureau for advice to the public in church matters. Its chief object is to win back former churchgoers and assist those who have not previously belonged to any religious congregation in obtaining church membership. The German Freethinkers League, which was swept away by the national revolution, was the largest of such organizations in Germany. It had about 500,000 members…”
– The New York Times, May 14, 1933, page 2, on Hitler’s outlawing atheistic andfreethinking groups in the Spring of 1933, after the Enabling Act authorizing Hitler to rule by decree

You mis-read. Bullock said that Hitler had no belief in God or conscience. Bullock didn’t say that Hitler had no beliefs.

Hitler, obviously, had beliefs. And he acted on them. His nonsensical belief in the superiority of one race over another, for example.

You’re making me bat back nonsensicalities (my coinage), irrelevancies and strawmen again. Things that are the product of your misreading or misunderstanding something. You should stop wasting everyone’s time by doing that.

Oh, and we are arguing opinions here. Therefore all assertions and conclusions are “opinionated,” as they rightly should be.

As for not getting to atheism, I don’t need Hitler to “get to atheism.” Atheism stands indicted with or without Hitler, but he was an atheist.

Furthermore, I don’t mind having him there as the exemplar of the assertion that “a lack of Christianity leads to violence and mass murder.” So, thank you for that. However, “Hitler was an atheist” is a lot more convincing, and it is where Bullock’s assertion leads one.

Demonstrate Hitler was an atheist. Demonstrate Stalin was an atheist. Demonstrate that Mao was an atheist. Demonstrate that the Kims are/were atheists.

See, the level of scepticism you’re putting on the level of evidence required to argue Hitler was a Christian forbids you from being able to defencibly argue the religiosity (or lack thereof) of any of the people in your argument.

I’m good with where you are in your understanding of Hitler’s “religious beliefs.” You largely agree with me, but are too proud to admit it. I have no problem with that. I don’t need your public admissions that I’m right. 🙂

Though, you seem to need that for your own ego gratification. Okay. In a lot of things, you’re right.

It’s not about ego or showing off for an audience (that doesn’t exist). It’s how conversations work.
We’re not doing comedy improvisation, the rule of just accepting what the other person says doesn’t stand. You make a claim and then take on a responsibility to defend a claim.

So, to get this straight, so far:
(1) Hitler is not a Christian, despite evidence presented by JZ that he is, and despite your inability to defend the idea that he is not.
(2) Hitler is an atheist, despite no evidence to that (except your ingratiated interpretation of Christianity).
(3) All the other tyrants are atheists either at their word (contradicting your approach to Hitler’s religious position) or from interpretations you’ve made based on their word.
(4) Despite claiming to not be able to know other people’s mind to any practical level of confidence, you are sure enough that I agree without. This is despite my outward contradiction to your claim.

Does that about sum up the intellectual hypocrisy you’re playing with, here?

(1) How is my Bullock quote a demonstration that I “can’t defend my position that Hitler was an atheist?” Silly boy!

(2) Zande’s “evidence” supported my conclusions, by supporting quite neatly the Bullock assertion. You called Bullock’s work discredited, and there are those who disagree with him, but you’ll note that the assertion has survived the test of time.

(3) I covered this. I evaluate the whole thing: words and deeds.

(4) You say publicly you disagree, as you would. You then argue my points for me. (note each time I’ve thanked you)

I’m perfectly okay with your public expressions that you disagree, but also with your indirect expressions of agreement with me.

Like Hitler: He said he was a Christian, but rather plainly he was not.

As for the audience, you have no idea what the audience is! It has nothing to do with “hit count,” if that’s what you’re thinking.

Hi, dudes! I see you guys are getting your sorry tails whupped by my friend xPraetorius.

(Btw: this is really xPraetorius actually setting up a duplicate ID. See how easy it is? No need even to “log in” So, now can you get off the “Who’s xPraetorius” obsession? It is the first refute of the out-of-gas-in-the-argument flailer.)

Okay… Allallt’s source. Sometimes you two blend in together. 🙂 Apologies for mixing up which nitwit quoted which irrelevant source. Okay. Now — even more so — we can be done with sources.

However, if you’re still obsessing over it, refer to the Bullock quote. I’m pretty sure that a dude “using the language of divine providence to advance his own myth” wouldn’t ever have “renounced his Christian faith.” Not, publicly at least. I’m equally sure that he wouldn’t even have a Christian faith to renounce! But, he’d sure pretend to have one, as Bullock asserts. (<– Uh oh! A source!)

Oh, and Allallt… the reason my id appeared with a typo in it is likely because of how your template works. One needs to "log in" only if one appears to be using an ID already in use. Since, "xPraetoriusx" is not in use by anyone else, there was no need to log in, and the comment went right through.

So, here's the deal: I'm one person. I post as one person. I have friends whom I allow to use my means of posting anonymously. One characteristic of that is that we all post from the same IP address, or addresses. It's what happens, for example, if a group of separate people all post from the same institution of higher learning. Separate people, separate e-mail addresses, etc. Same IP address. It's a way of providing privacy protections for internet users right in the structure of the internet itself. Kind of like a P.O. box return address for snail mail, but better.

Just, as you said once when you threw a Trumpesque tantrum, covering some bases. As ignorant as you are about other things, I guess I'm not surprised that you're ignorant of this aspect of the internet. Nor am I surprised at your obsession with it. After all, that's exactly how it played out with the Race Grievance Industry whiners when they ran out of intellectual gas too.

They also felt the need to scrabble around to try to find out who I am, where I was posting from, where others who were supporting my point-of-view were posting from. Furthermore, if I wished to make it seem as if I were posting from Denmark, I could do that in a blink. It wouldn't change, however, the fact that you'd still scrabble around to find something irrelevant in that! It’s how the debate loser operates: “We’re out of gas! Deflect! Deflect! Deflect! Look, a squirrel!”

Did you note that I don’t care who you are or where you post from? It’s because my ideas and thinking are better than yours, and I don’t need to find out all that irrelevant stuff. Even if I were all the things you say I am, you still can’t seem to post a credible counter to my thoughts. Or even “our” thoughts. 🙂

I know, I know! Let’s stipulate to all the silly, irrelevant things you say about me. Yep, I’m crazy. Yep, I’m stupid. Yep, I have some weird kind of “multiple personality” thing going on. But, apparently, I can still put words on a web page that leave you without a coherent counter-argument.

I mean, if I’m all those things you say I am, oughtn’t it to be child’s play to knock my thinking right out of the park? But, you keep stalling, and bringing up side topics and elementary irrelevancies, and whining to me about sources, sources, sources and more sources, and calling me names.

Surely my unsourced opinions — the opinions of a stupid crazy, multiple-personality dude (am I even a dude? Holy mackerel!) — should be easy to mop up. Yet, you’ve failed.

No, we’re not. Allalt and I appreciate facts that support an argument. So far, you have produce absolutely ZERO to support your position. Whereas I can provide you just some of the following to support mine:

1. Adolf Hitler: Acting According to God’s Will
I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 2

2. Adolf Hitler: Thanking God
Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 5

3. Adolf Hitler: Deutschland Über Alles
I had so often sung ‘Deutschland über Alles’ and shouted ‘Heil’ at the top of my lungs, that it seemed to me almost a belated act of grace to be allowed to stand as a witness in the divine court of the eternal judge and proclaim the sincerity of this conviction.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 5

4. Adolf Hitler: God’s Grace Smiles
Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord’s grace smiled on His ungrateful children.
– Adolf Hitler reflecting on World War I, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 7

5. Adolf Hitler: Fulfilling God’s Mission
What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland; so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 8

6. Adolf Hitler: Fate of God
But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought to its end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred years from now. I think you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the Almighty.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 10

7. Adolf Hitler: Sin Against the Will of God
In short, the results of miscegenation are always the following: (a) The level of the superior race becomes lowered; (b) physical and mental degeneration sets in, thus leading slowly but steadily towards a progressive drying up of the vital sap. The act which brings about such a development is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator. And as a sin this act will be avenged.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 11

8. Adolf Hitler: Sacrilege Against God
Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1

9. Adolf Hitler: Confidence in God
Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the ‘remaking’ of the Reich as they call it.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1

10. Adolf Hitler: Gold has Replaced God
It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2

11. Adolf Hitler: Sin Against the Will of God
It doesn’t dawn on this depraved bourgeois world that this is positively a sin against all reason; that it is criminal lunacy to keep on drilling a born half-ape until people think they have made a lawyer out of him, while millions of members of the highest culture-race must remain in entirely unworthy positions; that it is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2

12. Adolf Hitler: Creation of God
That this is possible may not be denied in a world where hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily submit to celibacy, obligated and bound by nothing except the injunction of the Church. Should the same renunciation not be possible if this injunction is replaced by the admonition finally to put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of racial poisoning, and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself created?
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2

13. Adolf Hitler: Don’t Just Talk About Fulfilling God’s Will
The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God’s will, and actually fulfill God’s will, and not let God’s word be desecrated. For God’s will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord’s creation, the divine will.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 10

14. Adolf Hitler: Doing Justice to God
To do justice to God and our own conscience, we have turned once more to the German Volk.
– Adolf Hitler in speech about the need for a moral regeneration of German, February 10, 1933

15. Adolf Hitler: Going Where God Wills
I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker.
– Adolf Hitler, Speech, March 15, 1936, Munich, Germany

16. Adolf Hitler: May God Bless Us
May divine providence bless us with enough courage and enough determination to perceive within ourselves this holy German space.
– Adolf Hitler, Speech, March 24, 1933

17. Adolf Hitler: When We Appear Before God…
We don’t ask the Almighty, ‘Lord, make us free!” We want to be active, to work, to work together, so that when the hour comes that we appear before the Lord we can say to him: ‘Lord, you see that we have changed.’ The German people is no longer a people of dishonor and shame, of self-destructiveness and cowardice. No, Lord, the German people is once more strong in spirit, strong in determination, strong in the willingness to bear every sacrifice. Lord, now bless our battle and our freedom, and therefore our German people and fatherland.
– Adolf Hitler, Prayer, May 1, 1933

18. Adolf Hitler: Fighting for the Lord’s Work
I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work.
– Adolf Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936

19. Adolf Hitler in Conversation with Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber
The Catholic Church should not deceive herself: if National Socialism does not succeed in defeating Bolshevism, then Church and Christianity in Europe too are finished. Bolshevism is the mortal enemy of the Church as much as of Fascism. …Man cannot exist without belief in God. The soldier who for three and four days lies under intense bombardment needs a religious prop.
– Adolf Hitler in conversation with Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria, November 4, 1936

You see how it works, Praetorius?

Facts.

So, whenever you want to produce some evidence that Hitler was not a Christian (the Nazi’s of course practiced Positive Christianity) I’d be happy to review it.

Show me evidence that Hitler was not 1) a Christian, and/or 2? Had renounced his Christian faith.

While your’re searching, here’s another wall of “Facts”

1. Adolf Hitler: Faith is the Only Basis for Morality
This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief. The great masses of a nation are not composed of philosophers. For the masses of the people, especially faith is absolutely the only basis of a moral outlook on life. The various substitutes that have been offered have not shown any results that might warrant us in thinking that they might usefully replace the existing denominations. …There may be a few hundreds of thousands of superior men who can live wisely and intelligently without depending on the general standards that prevail in everyday life, but the millions of others cannot do so.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 10

2. Adolf Hitler: Faith is Harder to Shake than Knowledge
Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12

3. Adolf Hitler: Fanaticism of Faith can Move Mountains
All in all, this whole period of winter 1919-20 was a single struggle to strengthen confidence in the victorious might of the young movement and raise it to that fanaticism of faith which can move mountains.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12

4. Adolf Hitler: Faith Lifts Us Above the Level of Animal Existence
By helping to lift the human being above the level of mere animal existence, Faith really contributes to consolidate and safeguard its own existence. Taking humanity as it exists to-day and taking into consideration the fact that the religious beliefs which it generally holds and which have been consolidated through our education, so that they serve as moral standards in practical life, if we should now abolish religious teaching and not replace it by anything of equal value the result would be that the foundations of human existence would be seriously shaken.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 2 Chapter 1

7. Adolf Hitler: Christian Missionaries Should Look to Europe
It would be more in keeping with the intention of the noblest man in this world if our two Christian churches, instead of annoying Negroes with missions which they neither desire nor understand, would kindly, but in all seriousness, teach our European humanity that where parents are not healthy it is a deed pleasing to God to take pity on a poor little healthy orphan child and give him father and mother, than themselves to give birth to a sick child who will only bring unhappiness and suffering on himself and the rest of the world.
– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2

8. Adolf Hitler: Burn out the Poison of Immorality
Today Christians … stand at the head of [this country]… I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit … We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press – in short, we want to burn out thepoison of immoralitywhich has entered into our whole life and culture as a result ofliberal excessduring the past … (few) years.
– Adolf Hitler, quoted in: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872

They look like ‘words’ to me. If it were not for the devilish actions of your hero friend Hitler, some may have been convinced that he was christian. Fortunately, the very God and book that you use to prove his alleged mettle, presents him as the ultimate bastard charlatan, with an allegiance to another father..

Of course you appeal to Hitler to side with your dark visions of a Creator………as it serves your purpose.

‘Not every one that SAYS…….Lord Lord………………’ Gotta love the scriptures safeguard against imposters.

CS, we haven’t argued about the religion of everyone xPrae has mentioned. Stalin and Lenin was atheists. (The Kims are not — they are Gods.)
It doesn’t serve our point, except to show that xPrae has no intention of actually providing a supporting argument.

1. Easter Sunday Blessing: Nazi Party Rules Germany in God’s Name
A state that once again rules in God’s name can count not only on our applause but also on enthusiastic and active cooperation from the church. With joy and thanks we see how this new state rejects blasphemy, attacks immorality, promotes discipline and order with a firm hand, demands awe before God, works to keep marriage sacred and our youth spiritually instructed, brings honor back to fathers of families, ensures that love of people and fatherland is no longer mocked, but burns in a thousand hearts. …We can only plead with our fellow worshipers to do an they can to help these new productive forces in our land reach a complete and unimpeded victory.
– Easter Sunday Blessing from Protestant Pastors in Bavaria, April 16, 1933

2. Cardinal Adolf Bertram: Promoting the Christian Education of the People
[I wish to express my church’s] sincere and joyous preparedness to cooperate as best they could with the government now ruling that had set itself that tasks of promoting the Christian education of the people, repelling ungodliness and immorality, developing readiness to make sacrifices for the common good and protecting the rights of the Church.
– Cardinal Adolf Bertram, Archbishop of Breslau, letter to Adolf Hitler following the announcement of the Concordat between Nazi Germany and the Vatican, July 22, 1933

3. Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber: May God Preserve Adolf Hitler
What the old parliament and parties did not accomplish in sixty years, your statesmanlike foresight has achieved in six months. For Germany’s prestige in East and West and before the whole world this handshake with the Papacy, the greatest moral power in the history of the world, is a feat of immeasurable blessing. …May God preserve the Reich Chancellor for our people.
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria, praising Adolf Hitler for the Concordat, July 24, 1933

4. Kirchenrat Leutheuser: Christ Comes to Us in the Person of Adolf Hitler
The word “German” is God’s Word! Whosoever understands this is released from all theological conflicts. This is German: return home to Germany and leave behind egoism and your feelings of abandonment. …Christ has come to us through the person of Adolf Hitler. …Hitler has taken root in us; through his strength, through his honesty, his faith and his idealism we have found our way to paradise.
– Kirchenrat Julius Leutheuser, addressing German Christians in Saalfeld, August 30, 1933

5. Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber: Catholics Should Agree with the Führer
In this way the Catholics will profess again their loyalty to people and Fatherland and their agreement with the farsighted and forceful efforts of the Führer to spare the German people the terror of war and Bolshevism, to secure public order and create work for the unemployed.
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria, encouraging German Catholics to vote “yes” in the upcoming plebiscite to re-elect Hitler and support his decision to withdraw from the League of Nations, November 10, 1933

6. Father Senn: Adolf Hitler is the Tool of God
[Adolf Hitler is] the tool of God, called upon to overcome Judaism…
– Father Senn, a Catholic priest, writing in a Catholic publication, May 15, 1934

7. Loyalty Oath: Unconditional Obedience to the Führer
I swear by almighty God this sacred oath: I will render unconditional obedience to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht, and, as a brave soldier, I will be ready at any time to stake my life for this oath.
– Loyalty Oath sworn by the military following the death of German President Paul von Hindenburg, August 2, 1934

8. Fulda Bishops’ Conference: Clergy Must be Loyal to Church and State
[It is good that Catholic organizations] reject all subversive attitudes and conduct, refrain from any political activity and especially will resolutely repel all attempted approaches of Communism. …[The clergy should always act] in full loyalty to Church and State.
– Statement of the Fulda Bishops’ Conference, August 23, 1935

9. German Christian: Hitler Has Reawakened the Church
Why don’t our rulers declare themselves for the Volkskirche, which is fighting for a living Christianity? With our great leader Adolf Hitler, our previously dead church also experienced the reawakening of a vital spirit. …[Julius] Streicher, the Franconian leader, said in a speech: ‘The murder of Golgotha is written on the foreheads of the Jews.’ Yes – and that is why there is a curse on that people. Jesus, however, died for us and so we should believe in him and accept him.
– German Christian woman, letter to Germany’s Foreign Minister, August 27, 1935

10. Bishop Rackl of Eichstätt: Good Catholics are Patriots
Good Catholics have always been good patriots. Surely not good Catholics staged the revolution of 1918, Catholic soldiers indeed have not been deserters, and good Catholics will never be on the side of revolutionaries, no matter how badly things are going.
– Bishop Rackl of Eichstätt, Sermon, May 26, 1935

11. Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber: Catholics Should Pray for the Life of the Führer
You are witnesses for the fact that on all Sundays and holidays at the main service we pray in all churches for the Führer as we have promised in the Concordat. …We will today give an answer, a Christian answer: Catholic men, we will now pray together a paternoster for the life of the Führer. This is our answer.
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria, Sermon, responding to newspaper story about a Swiss Catholic asking children to pray for Hitler’s death, July 7, 1936

12. Fulda German Bishops’ Conference: May God Help the Führer Succeed
[Germany must be made militarily stronger to ensure that not only would Europe be] cleansed from Bolshevism, but the entire rescued civilized world will be able to be thankful to us. …The task which this imposes upon our people and Fatherland follows as a matter of course. May our Führer, with God’s help, succeed in completing this terribly difficult undertaking with unshakable determination and faithful participating of allVolksgenossen.
– Fulda German Bishops’ Conference, Pastoral Letter, August 19, 1936

13. Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber: Hitler Lives in Faith in God
“The Führer commands the diplomatic and social forms better than a born sovereign. …Without a doubt the chancellor lives in faith in God. He recognizes Christianity as the foundation of Western culture. …Not as clear is his conception of the Catholic Church as a God-established institution.” As a result of this report, the conference votes to “once again affirm our loyal and positive attitude, demanded by the fourth commandment, toward today’s form of government and the Führer.” They assure the Führer they will provide him “all available moral resources his world-historical struggle aimed at repelling Bolshevism.”
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber, meeting of Bavarian bishops on his meeting with Adolf Hitler, December 13, 1936

14. Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber: Church Must Strengthen Confidence in Hitler
“The Führer and Chancellor of the Reich, Adolf Hitler, has sighted the advance of Bolshevism from afar and his thoughts and aspirations aim at averting the horrible danger from our German people and the entire Occident. The German bishops consider it their duty to support the head of the German Reich by all those means which the Church has at its disposal.” Faulhaber insists that defending against Bolshevism is a religious duty and, to achieve this, it is necessary for the Church to muster all its moral and spiritual assets “to strengthen confidence in the Führer.”
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria, Pastoral Letter, January 3, 1937

15. Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber: Concordat Improves Reputation of Nazi Germany
At a time when the heads of the major nations in the world faced the new Germany with cool reserve and considerable suspicion, the Catholic Church, the greatest moral power on earth, through the Concordat expressed its confidence in the new German government. This was a deed of immeasurable significance for the reputation of the new government abroad.
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria, Sermon, February 14, 1937

16. Cardinal Theodor Innitzer: Pray to God in Thanks for Hitler and the Nazis
[Austrian Catholics should greet Adolf Hitler and the Nazis by] praying to the Lord God in thanks for the bloodless course of this great political change and to ask for a happy future for Austria. Of course, all orders from the authorities will be happily and willingly obeyed.
– Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna, March 12, 1938

17. Cardinal Theodor Innitzer: Priests Must Support the Führer
Those…entrusted with souls and the faithful will unconditionally support the great German state and the Führer, because the historical struggle against the criminal illusion of Bolshevism and for the security of German life, for work and bread, for the power and honor of the Reich and for the unity of the German nation, is obviously accomplished by the blessing of Providence. …Faith and the intimate union of souls gives Christians the conviction that the natural community of the nation is called upon to realize a divine idea, and it follows that a truly religious life presupposes the practice of national virtues.
– Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna, to Catholic clergy after meeting with Hitler, March 15, 1938

18. Catholic Hierarchy of Austria: National Socialism Defends Against Atheist Bolshe
We joyfully acknowledge that the National Socialist movement has done and is still doing eminent work in the domain of national and economic construction as well as in the domain of social policy, for the Reich and the German nation… We are also convinced that the activity of the National Socialist movement has averted the danger of an all-destroying atheistic Bolshevism. For the future, the bishops confer their heartiest blessing on this activity, and they will instruct the faithful to this effect. …it is for us a national duty, as Germans, to vote for the German Reich, and we also expect all believing Christians to demonstrate that they know what they owe to their nation.
-Catholic Hierarchy of Austria, March 18, 1938

19. Bishop Hans Meiser: Loyalty Oath to the Führer
Pastors in the Bavarian regional church are required as public officials to perform the following oath: ‘I swear to God the Almighty and All-knowing: I will be loyal and obedient to the Führer of the Reich and Volk, Adolf Hitler, I will obey the laws, and I will conscientiously fulfill all my official duties, so help me God.’ This law is effective immediately.
-Bishop Hans Meiser of the Bavarian Evangelical-Lutheran Church, May 18, 1938

20. Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber: Adolf Hitler is a Man of Peace
“[Adolf Hitler is a] man of peace. …The great deed of safeguarding peace…moves the German episcopate acting in the name of the Catholics of all the German dioceses…to extend congratulations and thanks and to order a festive ringing of bells on Sunday.” Read in all Berlin pulpits: “God has heard the prayer of all Christendom for peace. By His grace and the tireless efforts of the responsible statesmen the terrible affliction of a war has been averted… [W]e desire now with a prayer and a Te deum to praise God for His goodness in that He has preserved peace for us…[and] assured the return of our Sudeten kinsmen to the German Reich.”
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber, commemorating Germany occupying Sudentenland, October 2, 1938

I haven’t said Hitler was a Christian. I have merely pointed out that JZ is provided evidence for his claim that Hitler was a Christian, and xPrae isn’t.
JZ also isn’t saying that Hitler was a good Christian (whatever “good” might mean in this context), only that he was a Christian (as defined by his beliefs). Now, although knowing beliefs will rely on indirect evidence, JZ has at least provided some — what Hitler said about his beliefs.
xPrae has offered nothing, expect a selective quote from a Wikipedia page he has decided not to lend any critical thinking to.

If you can provide any evidence either way, that would be great. But I, so far. have JZ offering imperfect evidence that Hitler was a Christian and xPrae basically saying “Nuh uh! And thinking that makes you stupid” in reply (I’m paraphrasing).
And now I have you alluding to, but not explicitly saying, that there is some specific way you define Christianity that relates not to what they believe, but “by their fruits”.

[Adolf Hitler is] the tool of God, called upon to overcome Judaism…
– Father Senn, a Catholic priest, writing in a Catholic publication, May 15, 1934

Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber: Adolf Hitler is a Man of Peace

“[Adolf Hitler is a] man of peace. …The great deed of safeguarding peace…moves the German episcopate acting in the name of the Catholics of all the German dioceses…to extend congratulations and thanks and to order a festive ringing of bells on Sunday.” Read in all Berlin pulpits: “God has heard the prayer of all Christendom for peace. By His grace and the tireless efforts of the responsible statesmen the terrible affliction of a war has been averted… [W]e desire now with a prayer and a Te deum to praise God for His goodness in that He has preserved peace for us…[and] assured the return of our Sudeten kinsmen to the German Reich.”
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber, commemorating Germany occupying Sudentenland, October 2, 1938

Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber: Hitler Lives in Faith in God

“The Führer commands the diplomatic and social forms better than a born sovereign. …Without a doubt the chancellor lives in faith in God. He recognizes Christianity as the foundation of Western culture. …Not as clear is his conception of the Catholic Church as a God-established institution.” As a result of this report, the conference votes to “once again affirm our loyal and positive attitude, demanded by the fourth commandment, toward today’s form of government and the Führer.” They assure the Führer they will provide him “all available moral resources his world-historical struggle aimed at repelling Bolshevism.”
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber, meeting of Bavarian bishops on his meeting with Adolf Hitler, December 13, 1936

Bishop Rackl of Eichstätt: Good Catholics are Patriots

Good Catholics have always been good patriots. Surely not good Catholics staged the revolution of 1918, Catholic soldiers indeed have not been deserters, and good Catholics will never be on the side of revolutionaries, no matter how badly things are going.
– Bishop Rackl of Eichstätt, Sermon, May 26, 1935

I’m not sure that is what we have shown.
You have established good (but not great) evidence for the claim that Hitler was a Christian (i.e. that’s what he said) and you have eviscerated the counter argument that ‘that’s not how a Christian behaves’ as Church leaders openly supported him.
And that is in the absence of the alternative side being able to present any evidence to the contrary, say, writings from Hitler’s private diary, where he says how foolish the world is for believing his Christianity.

I don’t think it’s beyond a shadow of a doubt. But, it’s beyond reasonable doubt, I would say. At this time. As no defense has been offered.

Kirchenrat Leutheuser: Christ Comes to Us in the Person of Adolf Hitler

The word “German” is God’s Word! Whosoever understands this is released from all theological conflicts. This is German: return home to Germany and leave behind egoism and your feelings of abandonment. …Christ has come to us through the person of Adolf Hitler. …Hitler has taken root in us; through his strength, through his honesty, his faith and his idealism we have found our way to paradise.
– Kirchenrat Julius Leutheuser, addressing German Christians in Saalfeld, August 30, 1933

You believe that Hitler, your “source,” was a great truth-teller. A great teller of “facts.”

Your source above is — Wow! — the horse’s mouth!

What else of what Hitler said was great fact? Are you a believer that Hitler was a great man, Zande? Hitler thought he was, and hinted constantly that he was. Is that “fact” too? Hitler said it, after all, and you seem to put great store into what Hitler said, as “fact” and “truth.” ‘Cause facts can also be called “truth.” If a fact is false, then it’s not a fact.

Well, the “facts” you presented are all from Hitler! Are you saying this is a credible source for historical consideration? Aer you implying that that Hitler would never, ever lie in order, say, to gain power, or to manipulate public opinion, or to try to burnish his legacy, or any other less than noble end?

Surely there are some things that Hitler said that were not “facts?” I hope so, else we fought a great war against what we thought was a very bad man. You seem to be indicating that he was really one who told the truth!

Silly me! Yet, again, you have so kindly produced all the above assertions by Hitler himself, and you call them “facts!” Every last one of those quotes from Hitler quite neatly supports Bullock’s assertion that Hitler was merely pretending to be a Christian in order to “expand his own myth,” but you say they’re facts!

This is incredible! Have you called historians? They’d be really interested to know that Hitler was actually stating facts all along! What a revelation! What a source! And right there in the open for all to see! Why, oh why, I wonder would Bullock say that Hitler was only pretending to be a Christian! Could it be that Bullock suspected Hitler of humbuggery? Of being less than entirely honest? Of a lack of integrity? Whence, I wonder, would he draw that conclusion?!?

Oh, by the way, I’m quite willing to agree that it’s a fact that Hitler said all those things. I’m pretty sure he said a lot of things. I’m thinking, though, that Hitler lacks credibility, as a source, for the actual truth of what he was saying. 🙂

Further, you’re free to peruse the New York Times article, “Atheist Hall Converted,” from May 14, 1933, page 2, on Hitler’s outlawing atheistic and freethinking groups in the Spring of 1933.

You’re also free to peruse the Associated Press Story, “Campaign against ‘Godless Movement'” from February 23, 1933, in which the author writes about Nazi’s “Positive Christianity.”

These are all contemporary affirmations of Hitler’s Christian faith, and the Nazi’s Christian orientation.

But no. You simply wave your hand and say “They’re not TrueChristians™”. Fine. So were the Crusaders Christians? Is Jerry Falwell a Christian? Is the KKK Christian? Were the slave owners of the South Christian? Is the violent right wing fanatic Gary North (leader of US Christian Dominionism and self-described Tea Party Economist) a Christian? What about the lunatics, John C. Hagee, Benny Hinn, George Morrison, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham… are they Christian? Was Timothy McVeigh a Christian? Is Putin a Christian? I see a lot of right wing Christians today in the US praising Putin for his aggressive stances. Wouldn’t you say this mirrors the attitudes of German Christians during the rise of the Nazi’s?

Now, let’s get to the point of all this. You tried to claim Hitler was an atheist. False. There is not a single indication that even hints that he was. Not one. Was he a good Christian? That’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it. It would appear, as I have so clearly demonstrated, that he would most definitely say he was, and many contemporary Bishops and Cardinals and priests would agree. This, I have also demonstrated.

I think this conversation is over.

And I’ll take your failure to address the fact that Israel was shaped by an atheist, and didn’t slide immediately into violent chaos, to be your concession that you are also dead wrong about atheist leaders.

There are no prominent right-wing people in America sympathetic to Putin

Just to dash your pantomime reality one more time: “Why U.S. conservatives love Russia’s Vladimir Putin”

“Over the past year, we’ve seen a consistent trend in both the United States and Europe of conservative admiration for Putin, a strongman praised for his decisive leadership, Christian values and old-school nationalism.”

I could post dozens of articles and quotes, like from Sarah Palin praising Putin, but here’s just one more, from one of your highest ranking Evangelical leaders, just because you’re such an idiot: “Evangelist Franklin Graham Loves Putin’s Antigay Policies”

“Conservative Christian evangelist Franklin Graham, on a trip to Russia last week, praised President Vladimir Putin and the nation’s so-called gay propaganda law for “protecting Russian young people” and criticized LGBT-accepting U.S. churches as well as President Obama. “I very much appreciate that President Putin is protecting Russian young people against homosexual propaganda,” Graham told Russian newspaper Moskoviskij Komsomolets”

Oh, dear… invalid sources. I guarantee that Franklin Graham is not an admirer of Putin. He might be an admirer of the idea that Putin has a congenial understanding of sexual weirdism, but I can tell you that I know that Graham is not an admirer of Putin’s. Nor is Palin, in real life.

Sorry. You’re trying to make a case for something that comes from the Washington Post and the sexual-weirdism-obsessed Advocate?

“[Putin is] the lion of Christianity, the defender of Christian values, the president that’s calling his nation back to embracing its identity as a nation founded on Christian values. To ever think we would get to the day that Russia would be more advanced spiritually than the United States. I mean, it’s just staggering to see what is happening to this country.”

Putin is the defender of Christian values… Pretty powerful stuff from one of America’s leading Evangelical leaders. The lion of Christianity!

Thank you for this! It neatly buttresses my point that no one of any prominence on the right who supports Putin.

Wait, wait, wait… I have an idea. Let’s stipulate to your thought (and that of whoever published the quote above. You didn’t give a source, after all. 🙂 ), that Bryan Fischer is a “prominent person on the right,” and that that itself proves that we rightists are all big supporters of Putin!

Do you really think that I can’t find any wackos and nutballs on the left who feel the same way? Four words: The Democrat Party Leadership.

xPrae, can you take a moment to acknowledge that we’ve already agreed that sources don’t work the way you’re presenting them. It’s not the accumulation of opinions that matters. It’s the evidence. Bullock’s opinion isn’t worth shit until we have some idea what evidence it is based on. And then then, it’s the evidence sourced that matters, not Bullock’s opinion.
You are using sources in exactly the wrong way, and saying they don’t work. That’s your problem.

He did post a comment that says Bullocks “opinion” was based on transcripts of testimonies given in the Nuremberg trials. What this actually means, and whose testimony he’s talking about, he doesn’t say. The same extract, though, also says Bullocks “opinion” is no-longer held as accurate, and hasn’t been since the early 90’s.

What xPrae is doing–and he thinks it’s highly sophisticated, I’m sure–is using sources in a completely unacademic and unreasonable way, and then arguing that because he doesn’t know how to use them, they don’t work.
It’s like me using my laptop to hammer in nails, and using that as the reason that I know, for certain, that computers cannot install Chrome. When you then install Chrome on a laptop, I then argue you’re misusing the words “laptop”, “install” and “Chrome”.
Okay, if that’s how you want to operate, xPrae, that’s not a conversation.

Bullock is not a philosopher of religion, he is a historian. His view is not held by the majority of people in his field. But none of that is as relevant as the fact we don’t have access to the evidence Bullock is basing his (now discredited) opinion on.

You could read my blog and still doubt that I am an atheist. People do. Many argue that I’m an agnostic. But you could argue that the entire blog is a ruse, a lie, and that really I am a Christian. But the level of contorted reasoning needed excludes you from reasonable conversation. You need to find a way of being entirely sceptical of all the idea I meant, at the time of writing, what it is I wrote. And with that intense scepticism in one hand, you have to somehow be completely credulous on the other hand, in accepting the ephemeral idea that I am a Christian. The person who does that is a moron.

Lol! You demand over and over and over and over and over again that I provide sources.

So, I give you one — your own! — and you say, “That’s not what I meant! I want you to present sources the way I want you to present them! Waaaaaahhhhh!!!”

And you say, “What’s the source for your source?”

Can you take a moment to acknowledge that what I said before, and what you admitted was true — that you would take any sources I might offer and immediately dismiss them as somehow illegitimate — simply came blindingly obviously, and repeatedly, true in this thread? And why? You couldn’t prevent yourself.

You said:

“Bullock’s opinion isn’t worth s*** until we have some idea what evidence it is based on.”

Wait, wait, wait… were you questioning the legitimacy of my source? Heavens! Who predicted that?!? And even when I used your source!

Face it: There’s not a single, solitary source I could present, to which you would not respond that way.

The atheists’ Holy Writ: “The Opinion of Others if It Agrees With Me.”

Who are you going on this roundabout for? Because it comes across as a theatre. I doubt anyone is still reading the comments, but even if they were, who are you hoping to convince?
Sources are useful when they provide data. The particular thing from the Wikipedia page you have picked does not provide data.

If I claim I am a Christian and can convince–over a long period of time–the Catholic Church that I am a Christian, that is the best evidence you are ever going to have as to my beliefs.
However, if I say I’m black, then there will be evidence that can overthrow my assertion, even if I believe it very firmly.
I hope, as you blog offers “Unusually Insightful and Literate Commentary on the World Around Us”, you can see that these are different domains that require and entertain different levels of evidence.

This isn’t subjective. It is the case that Hitler either did or did not believe certain things. That’s the definition of objective.
What you’re arguing is that it’s unknowable.
What I’m arguing it that you can’t show he’s an atheist, so you have to knock the Holocaust off the list of atheism-caused things (as you argue for) and lose the argument that these things are exclusively atheist.
JZ is arguing that there is a fair amount of evidence of Hitler’s religion in things Hitler said and wrote, and the authorities within certain Churches who believed that (not as dissuaded as you are that it’s impossible for Christians to act that way) and that you have no contrary evidence except for your own opinion about how Christians should behave.
I’m saying that you haven’t presented a case for Hitler being an atheist and on the balance of evidence provided it would be reasonable to believe he was a Christian.

This is a silly argument. If you are black, there is physical evidence to counter your assertion. There is no evidence on earth that can prove of disprove your assertion that you are or are not a Christian.

Again, this is not a difficult concept to understand.

However, you may unwittingly have stumbled upon something: The strange case of Rachel Dolezal. A plainly white girl — blonde hair, blue eyes, etc. — decides that she wants to be — or is! — black, and begins to dye her skin and hair, and call herself black. She convinces enough people eventually to find herself the head of the Seattle (or thereabouts) chapter of the NAACP!

After some years in that position, someone recognizes her and outs her as a white woman, to which many respond that she actually is black, merely from the desire to be black.

We see also the equally strange case of one “Caitlyn Jenner” an obvious man who said one day that he was really a woman, despite the indisputable evidence which included a victory in the 1972 (or thereabouts) men’s Olympic decathlon event!

Absent the skin and hair dyes, and the surgeries and the ongoing hormone replacements, both Dolezal and Jenner would be exposed for what they really are: a white woman and a man. Everyone knows this, yet there are many here in America who insist that she is black and he is a woman. Furthermore, they will characterize you as the worst of bigoted louts if you have the temerity to point out that, absent chemical modification her skin is white, and absent surgery and hormones, he’s got all the objective, incontrovertible evidence of being a dude.

Herein the rub: People are now able to look you and me straight in the eye and say white is black, and man is woman, despite all the very, very scientific, once incontrovertible evidence. And that’s for physical things! Things with measures, and counts, and numeric values and the like.

It’s this state of mind that allows Zande to suggest that Christ, when He plainly forbade the stoning of the adulteress, nevertheless would approve of the stoning of unruly children.

Pray tell, what sources could one bring to an argument where one side is willing to make these kinds of nonsensical arguments? None, of course.

While the black-is-white, man-is-woman, Christ-supports-stoning-unruly-children arguments are ridiculous on their face, they have carried the day in America, and they have opened the country to a vast slew of other really stupid arguments. For example: euthanasia. Eugenics for another, both of which are all the rage in the American left, which is absolutely able to believe anything at all, as long as you throw some fancy words around it.

How does one argue against people who are posing such stupid arguments? Well, one simply does one’s best, and points out the absurdities where one can. One then hopes that one has planted the seeds of reason and sanity in the fuzzy thinking, where, one day they might germinate and grow.

You are plainly in the “truth is anything I want it to be” crowd, and you’ll find plenty of company there. It’s also jam-packed with atheists, who, absent an Absolute Truth, give themselves permission to believe anything they want, thereby confirming Chesterton’s observation.

If you want to aim for absolute certainty on the issue of whether Hitler was a Christian, then fine. You can’t get absolute certainty anywhere, though, and demanding it here is an obvious betrayal of the fact you have a motive to argue a point, and not that you’re looking for a defensible argument.
How do you support the argument that Stalin was an atheist? I know he said it, but what does that matter? Hitler said he was a Christian, and you don’t accept that.

The one of us demanding that truth is what they want it to be is you. You are selective credulous and sceptical depending on your preceding agreement with the claim.
You already agreed that Stalin was an atheist, so the fact he said he was an atheist is all you need. The exact same evidence in favour of Hitler being a Christian is selectively discarded because you already disagree with the conclusion.

You already agreed that Stalin was an atheist, so the fact he said he was an atheist is all you need. The exact same evidence in favour of Hitler being a Christian is selectively discarded because you already disagree with the conclusion.

But anyway, here are some again just for your pleasure. Enjoy the opinions of church leaders confirming that Hitler was a good Christian.

Cardinal Adolf Bertram:

“[I wish to express my church’s] sincere and joyous preparedness to cooperate as best they could with the government now ruling that had set itself that tasks of promoting the Christian education of the people, repelling ungodliness and immorality, developing readiness to make sacrifices for the common good and protecting the rights of the Church.”
– Cardinal Adolf Bertram, Archbishop of Breslau, letter to Adolf Hitler following the announcement of the Concordat between Nazi Germany and the Vatican, July 22, 1933

Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber:

“What the old parliament and parties did not accomplish in sixty years, your statesmanlike foresight has achieved in six months. For Germany’s prestige in East and West and before the whole world this handshake with the Papacy, the greatest moral power in the history of the world, is a feat of immeasurable blessing. …May God preserve the Reich Chancellor for our people.”
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria, praising Adolf Hitler for the Concordat, July 24, 1933

Kirchenrat Leutheuser:

“The word “German” is God’s Word! Whosoever understands this is released from all theological conflicts. This is German: return home to Germany and leave behind egoism and your feelings of abandonment. …Christ has come to us through the person of Adolf Hitler. …Hitler has taken root in us; through his strength, through his honesty, his faith and his idealism we have found our way to paradise.”
– Kirchenrat Julius Leutheuser, addressing German Christians in Saalfeld, August 30, 1933

Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber:

“In this way the Catholics will profess again their loyalty to people and Fatherland and their agreement with the farsighted and forceful efforts of the Führer to spare the German people the terror of war and Bolshevism, to secure public order and create work for the unemployed.”
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria, encouraging German Catholics to vote “yes” in the upcoming plebiscite to re-elect Hitler and support his decision to withdraw from the League of Nations, November 10, 1933

Father Senn:

“[Adolf Hitler is] the tool of God, called upon to overcome Judaism…”
– Father Senn, a Catholic priest, writing in a Catholic publication, May 15, 1934

Bishop Rackl of Eichstätt:

“Good Catholics have always been good patriots. Surely not good Catholics staged the revolution of 1918, Catholic soldiers indeed have not been deserters, and good Catholics will never be on the side of revolutionaries, no matter how badly things are going.”
– Bishop Rackl of Eichstätt, Sermon, May 26, 1935

Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber:

“You are witnesses for the fact that on all Sundays and holidays at the main service we pray in all churches for the Führer as we have promised in the Concordat. …We will today give an answer, a Christian answer: Catholic men, we will now pray together a paternoster for the life of the Führer. This is our answer.”
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Bavaria, Sermon, responding to newspaper story about a Swiss Catholic asking children to pray for Hitler’s death, July 7, 1936

Fulda German Bishops’ Conference:

“[Germany must be made militarily stronger to ensure that not only would Europe be] cleansed from Bolshevism, but the entire rescued civilized world will be able to be thankful to us. …The task which this imposes upon our people and Fatherland follows as a matter of course. May our Führer, with God’s help, succeed in completing this terribly difficult undertaking with unshakable determination and faithful participating of allVolksgenossen.”
– Fulda German Bishops’ Conference, Pastoral Letter, August 19, 1936

Cardinal Theodor Innitzer:

“[Austrian Catholics should greet Adolf Hitler and the Nazis by] praying to the Lord God in thanks for the bloodless course of this great political change and to ask for a happy future for Austria. Of course, all orders from the authorities will be happily and willingly obeyed.”
– Cardinal Theodor Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna, March 12, 1938

Bishop Hans Meiser:

Pastors in the Bavarian regional church are required as public officials to perform the following oath: ‘I swear to God the Almighty and All-knowing: I will be loyal and obedient to the Führer of the Reich and Volk, Adolf Hitler, I will obey the laws, and I will conscientiously fulfill all my official duties, so help me God.’ This law is effective immediately.
-Bishop Hans Meiser of the Bavarian Evangelical-Lutheran Church, May 18, 1938

Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber:

“[Adolf Hitler is a] man of peace. …The great deed of safeguarding peace…moves the German episcopate acting in the name of the Catholics of all the German dioceses…to extend congratulations and thanks and to order a festive ringing of bells on Sunday.” Read in all Berlin pulpits: “God has heard the prayer of all Christendom for peace. By His grace and the tireless efforts of the responsible statesmen the terrible affliction of a war has been averted… [W]e desire now with a prayer and a Te deum to praise God for His goodness in that He has preserved peace for us…[and] assured the return of our Sudeten kinsmen to the German Reich.”
– Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber, commemorating Germany occupying Sudentenland, October 2, 1938

So, Hitler tried to dupe Christians, and you’re surprised when some Christians are duped?

Same thing as before. These sources assist my argument more than yours.

Again, dueling sources are proven to be stupid and useless.

Furthermore, Hitler’s acts — in obvious conflict with Christian doctrine — as well as Bullocks’ neat summation, also rise in support of my arguments. I thank you for these quotes, as they’re more powerful sources on behalf of my arguments than yours.

Allallt: as far as credibility is concerned, your inability to — or maybe I should say your religious insistence on failing to — see that there are no sources that that can be brought to bear in a subjective argument torpedoes your arguments entirely.

Both you and Zande sure seem a lot more religious, much more dogmatically inflexible — after all, these are not difficult things to understand, yet they seem unable to penetrate your noggins — than any religious people I meet.

Allallt: Zande’s Zlork was so easy to debunk — and was easily debunked — by others and me, that it was really a waste of electrons. It stands there in the thread for all to see. The entire Zlork diversion was a complete waste of time, and a logical dead end from the beginning. I point to that thread as a source.

P.S. So, this you have no responses to the arguments of a stupid, crazy, multiple-personality person who might or might not be a dude, except to call him names, investigate where he’s posting from, and question his integrity. But, when you stand before his thinking, you have only irrelevant flapdoodle.

Lost in all your flailing, of course, is the fact that I pretty much walloped you in the “atheism as a component in mass murder” train of thought.

Which means, of course, that you have allowed a stupid, crazy, multiple-personality maybe-dude, to steamroll you completely in an argument.

Oh xPrae, your exaggerated sense of self has lead you to believe you have a good argument. You do not.
The quality of your argument was poor from the start, and your inability to dig any further to bend your ideas to facts, made your argument entirely laughable.
I don’t know if you can tell, but your argument has collapsed on the marketplace of ideas and is now simply a figure of fun.
You don’t even acknowledge that non-Jainism is a component in mass murder.

Hahaha ha hahahahaha.
Where do you get your ideas from? How is any of this spin or admission of loss? Is it because that would be more convenient for you, as you don’t have any actual arguments?
It’s a good strategy, actually. I might look at implementing it in the future: make the same bad point over and over and simply deny the counter-arguments without explaining how they fail and go back to my fallacious points and then when the opposition is finally exasperated, use that as evidence they’ve concede I’m right.

I can be as wrong as I please, so long as I’m also immensely dense, and when the opposition realises there’s no real conversation going on I can declare victory.

Well done. I mean, it’s a poor strategy for finding truth, but I’m sure it’s great for your ego.

My exaggerated sense of self? You called me crazy, stupid, dishonest and a whole host of other things, and I admitted it was true! I admitted that all those terrible things you said about me were true (they’re not, but I don’t really care about your opinion of me 🙂 ) and then quite innocently asked, what it says about you, that you allowed a stupid, crazy, dishonest lout like me to tie you in knots all this time. It’s a valid question, I’m sure you’ll admit.

What an egotist I must be! What an “exaggerated sense of self” I must have!

I was more thinking about how you think your assertions are evidence. Or that you simply claiming someone else is unconvincing is enough to actually discard them.
I do find you to have an exaggerated sense of self. You seem to think a lot of your self and your own intellect — to the point you don’t seem to think you need to support yourself. You even discarded arguments you thought were “derivative slop”, which means it’s based on the thoughts of other experts or wasn’t “original thought”. You really think you’re having original thoughts?

I’ll be honest, I was happy when you said you were a sportsperson, and not a politician.

I didn’t suggest that I was having “original thoughts,” just that the thoughts were mine. Of course, I derived them from “sources,” but if you and I were to go into all that, we’d be at this for decades, and not get anywhere substantive. You already conceded to me that there was a strong likelihood that we were simply going to dismiss each others’ sources anyway. Why can’t you get off the idea? You asked for “Atheist Holy Writ.” Okay: sources. Ark certainly reveres them. Your single-minded obsession with what you think is my need to provide some outside validation of what I say, when what I say is pretty mainstream, is just odd.

I’ve effectively pointed out the weaknesses of relying on sources, so I don’t think I have to talk about that anymore.

By “your thinking,” I mean that I could probably provide counter arguments to things you think, that might be elucidating for you. I suspect that the reverse is true as well, but you refuse to participate.

An example:
• Zande quoted Adolf Hitler a bunch of times to, he thought, “prove” that Hitler was a Christian.
• I countered with the suggestion that, just perhaps, Hitler might have been lying, as he was known to do from time to time.
• In another discussion, on another blog, Zande (I think) had cheerfully argued that Hitler was not a socialist, even though he had said he was.
• So, Hitler said he was a Christian a bunch of times, and that was true. Why? Because Hitler said so.
• But: Hitler also said he was a socialist a bunch of times, and that was false. Why? Because Hitler said so.

Zande appeared to have been only selective willing to incorporate the element of Hitler’s relative credibility into his reasoning. He seemed perfectly willing to believe Hitler when Hitler said something Zande liked, but was convinced Hitler was lying when Hitler said something of which Zande disapproved.

You’ve done that as well with atheism. The mass murderers of the 20th Century all insisted — aggressively, militantly, frequently, and often violently — that they were atheists, and that they were going to be darned sure you too were going to be an atheist. Or else they’d kill you.

You then said, nope, they’re not atheists. Or at least their atheism had nothing to do with how they were ordering their own society even though they insisted it did!

I wondered at that little bit of mind-reading, and suggested that they all looked like atheists, walked like atheists, talked like atheists, quacked like atheists — they were probably atheists. Having never given any indication that they were anything else. (Not entirely true, by the way).

In fact, people like Stalin, were ex-Christians, and became the murdering scum they became with rejection of Christianity as a part of their résumé.

You said:

It’s a good strategy, actually. I might look at implementing it in the future: make the same bad point over and over and simply deny the counter-arguments without explaining how they fail and go back to my fallacious points and then when the opposition is finally exasperated, use that as evidence they’ve concede I’m right.

That is, and has long been, your strategy. You implemented it a long time ago. Part of that strategy is, of course, to be the first to say: “It’s a good strategy, actually. I might look at implementing it in the future: make the same bad point over and over and simply deny the counter-arguments without explaining how ”

It’s always a bad strategy to misrepresent someone’s views to that person. I have not they are not atheists.

Although I appreciate the tone of this comment is a lot calmer and politer, you’ve lost all credibility xPrae.
I don’t believe you really hold the misunderstandings you articulate.

I really don’t believe you can still think it worthwhile to discard what someone really believes and focus on 1 area where they don’t agree with you. You seem to notice how insane it is when you ignore the Jainism comment I made.

Oh, poor, deluded xPrae. We agreed that sources don’t work if it’s simply a case of sharing someone’s evaluation and opinions, and is meant to be used to offer methods and data.
You then tried to use a source that only shares someone’s conclusions without their data or method. And then when I point out that is the exact thing we just said sources aren’t used for, you use it to discard all sources all together.
And you think that’s our concession.
You’re not being honest.

There simply are no data, there are no facts, that can prove conclusively what Hitler thought or believed. We have only our own interpretations of what he did and said. Mine interpretations of his words and deeds makes much more sense than yours or Zande’s. That’s pretty much beyond dispute.

What you guys can’t seem to get through your heads is that our discussion/argument here is, as I’ve said before, entirely subjective. There is no sourcing that can be brought to bear to “prove” anything subjective. You ought to be able to deal with that realm all on your own, without your security blankets.

It’s a bit like Zande and his beloved Zlork. He kept pointing to his own book, as if that that would somehow provide anything like proof of the existence of Zlork. Okay. Whatever. It was not worth all the time and effort he, and I, put into talking about it. But it sure was a source! And, as far as Zlork is concerned, definitive! But useless and worthless.

“Unusually Insightful and Literate Commentary on the World Around Us”
But not aware that “proof” is not the level of confidence reasonable people aim at.
I didn’t say Hitler was a Christian or an atheist. I said Zande is actually willing to provide quotes from both Hitler and Christians that were convinced Hitler was a Christian, and you are willing to provide something that boiled down to ‘that’s not my definition of Christianity!’
Well, unless God died, I don’t think you’ve been made the arbiter of what Christianity is. And you haven’t been able to defend your ‘Humanised’ Christianity (I’m aware that term is loaded, but you know what I mean).

With regard to Hitler, your argument has been ‘That’s not my Christianity’ and ‘no, I won’t present a cogent argument for for my Christianity’. So, as much as you can bicker about Zande’s argument, you’ve presented nothing of substance on the issue. And you think we should invest energy in taking it seriously.

With regard to the tyrants, I don’t think the Kims are atheists, I think they are the actual Gods. I don’t know that Hitler was an atheist, but no one has presented an argument to say he’s an atheist, other than you assertion of atheism equating to nihilism on some level and that’s the only explanation you can think of. I’ve not known abductive reasoning be reliable. So, I’m not sure I’m willing to include Hitler in your list of atheists.

But, Mao’s still there. Stalin’s still there. Okay, that takes the exclusivity out of your claim, but that doesn’t actually affect your claim. Your claim is that atheism offers no prohibitions and therefore that is a more important focus that the things they actually believed and the things that actually motivated them. My rebuttal that it’s not atheism, but a lack of Jainism, that should be the focus is precisely as valid and I’ve offered precisely as much defence.

When you eventually rebut that, you’ll have to say something like Christianity also offering prohibitions, at which point I’ll offer two rebuttals (1) that is a concession that it is more sensible to focus on the things people do believe and (2) the Bible gives so many moral imperatives as to offer no prohibition to anyone except people like you who have opted to take a compassionate interpretation of the Bible. I’m not arguing that is a bad thing to do, I am arguing it’s not Biblical. (Or, at least, that you haven’t defended it with anything other than pointing at the bits you like. That’s identical in substance to me point to the bits you don’t like, morally, and that’s why Christianity also offers no prohibition.)

The problem with your claim that you understand Christianity, and even more strangely, that it’s obvious how you should interpret Christianity, is that there is a genuine plethora of beliefs and people are heinous in the name of Christianity and they have been throughout the millenia. How can it be obvious? Even if you’re right (which your yet to convincingly defend) how on earth can it be obvious?

I’m not sure you understand Zlork. Zlork is an exploration of Ontological arguments for a God. Zande is actually an atheist, the point in Zlork is that he makes as much sense, if not more sense, of some of the traditional arguments for God’s existence. It’s actually a very difficult God to argue against without also tearing down more traditional Gods. I’m sure you’re invited to try.

• You say: “Humanised Christianity,” when you mean: “Christianity.” No qualifier needed. Christianity started out “humane.” That humans abused it is not surprising. It validates the expression: The worst thing about Christianity is the Christians.” Thank God (and I do!) Jesus came along and gave us a way out of the muck of our own making!

• As pointed out, Zlork made no sense on very basic, very elementary grounds. Don’t forget that Zande based a good deal of his argument for the idea that Zlork makes as much sense as the real God, on (1) living, suffering rocks and crystals, (2) suffering protozoa, (3) suffering vegetation. Go ahead … in your mind, see where a sense of ethics can take you with that mess, and you decide — sans sources! — whether it makes more sense than religious belief.

• You don’t “concede” as much as you make my argument for me, then try to pretend it’s your own. I classify that as a concession, because I’m not the only one perceiving all this, and it’s helpful for me to point it out when you do this.

• Concerning the Kims of North Korea. If a person proclaims himself a Marxist, as the Kims do — albeit with their own branding — (Like, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Lenin — and even Hitler and Mussolini!) then, the foundation for them — Marxism — has as a basic component: atheism. Even Evangelical Atheism! As seen over and over and over again, when power-mad (yes, that term is a gift to you) atheists actually make the society in their own image, and place themselves atop it as “gods,” they’re still atheists in good standing. The idea of the atheist substituting himself for God, and establishing a quasi-religion based on himself, is a well-known phenomenon. Mao did the same. Khrushchev spoke of Stalin’s “Cult of Personality,” a watered-down term meaning “religion.” So, for terminology’s sake, I still consider someone — ie Hitler, or the Kims — as atheists, if they try to supplant God in the minds of the people.

• With regard to Hitler, my argument is not “that’s not my Christianity,” but rather, “that’s not Christianity. Period.” Christianity isn’t “mine,” and it doesn’t permit any of the main components of Hitlerism (Nazism) that were absolutely necessary for Hitler’s rise to power, and his subsequent crimes. The belief that the Jews were inferior: forbidden. The mirror belief that Aryans were superior: forbidden. The dispossession of the Jews: forbidden. The initiation of what became World War II, as well as the minor steps leading up to it — the annexations, the Anschluss, and all: forbidden. The attempt to exterminate the Jews: forbidden. The attempt to exterminate Catholics, gypsies, homosexuals and others: forbidden.

Here’s a non-controversial statement: There is no way that Hitler, acting as a good Christian, could have arrived at the pinnacle of power in Nazi Germany. He might have arrived at the pinnacle of power in another sort of Germany, but not that one. I do</b. wonder what would have happened if someone with Hitler's oratorical gifts had been able to express himself as hypnotically as he did, and had brought with him a message of good rather than of evil.

A small anecdote: Years ago, I was watching a documentary on television. One or other of the History Channels, I think. At that time I didn't speak any German. The documentary involved the showing of a Hitler speech in its entirety, with English subtitles. I didn't have my glasses, so was unable to read the subtitles, but was able to make out Hitler and his gestures and all. The speech was mesmerizing. I had no way of knowing what he was saying, but I could sure tell that he was being persuasive in whatever he was trying to get across. I could feel the energy and intensity and effectiveness of the presentation. There was no doubt that those watching and listening to him at the time of the speech would have felt it a great deal more powerfully than I was with decades of remove and no knowledge of the language.

Forbidden – in your interpretation of Christianity. You were wailing on about subjectivity earlier. It’s here, too.
The statement is controversial. “Good”, by what metric? I agree that a “good” person (regardless of any other qualifier) couldn’t have done what Hitler did. But I’m using an ethical standard derived from human discussion and Humanism. If you want to derive it from Christianity, devoid of the human discussion that supersedes it, then there’s a problem. Your claim becomes controversial.

Also — I see you take people at their word when it suits you. Why do you take Mao and the Kims at their word, but not Hitler?

Forbidden. In Christianity. There is no “my interpretation of Christianity.”

Thank you for this. An atheist would say: “‘Good’, by what metric? I agree that a “good” person (regardless of any other qualifier) couldn’t have done what Hitler did.” In an atheist’s worldview, “good” is anything he wishes to believe it is at any given moment. You and I agree on this point.

Presumably, you also agree that, for any given atheist, Hitler was a very fine person, a “good” person, if he chooses to think so.

[MARK]

You said:

But I’m using an ethical standard derived from human discussion and Humanism. If you want to derive it from Christianity, devoid of the human discussion that supersedes it, then there’s a problem. Your claim becomes controversial.

Again, my claim is controversial only for an atheist. A Christian with he merest of a rudimentary understanding of Christianity sees no controversy in my statement.

Needless to say, there are overlaps between your “Humanism” and Christianity. But, there are serious divergences as well. For example, your beloved “Humanist” frequently has no problem with killing babies. Peter Singer considers himself a highly ethical (probably) Humanist, and he is for the “humane” murder of “defective” babies. I suspect you are as well. I already know that if someone presents himself on Tuesday to two doctors, and convincingly suggests he has no reason to continue to live, you are okay with killing him. This is a divergence from Christianity, that you envision in Humanism. Christianity, though, envisions the possibility that on Wednesday he might change his mind.

About my taking Mao and the Kims at their word, but not Hitler, you know that’s not true.

I analyze the entirety of their words and deeds. I’ve made arguments about all these things many, many times in other threads. Including the last one in which we interacted. I view this thread as only a continuation of that interaction. So do you, by the way. Mark, for example, your constant insistence that “you link back there.” Presumably that others would follow those links? I don’t, therefore, feel the need to rehash arguments I’ve already made many times before.

[…] tongue in cheek title is based upon an earlier article by atheist Allallt, titled “xPrae: How I defeated you so soundly“, within which they outline how they supposedly bested another blogger in an earlier exchange […]

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